A fundraising campaign has been launched to build a statue in memory of Freya, a 1,300-pound walrus euthanized this week by Norwegian authorities who said she posed a threat to human safety. Freya the walrus, which captivated crowds in Norway, is killed by authorities The young female aquatic walrus – nicknamed the Norse goddess of beauty and love – had been roosting in the Norwegian capital, Oslo, since mid-July, sleeping on boats and sunbathing on piers. Officials decided to euthanize the walrus in the early hours of Sunday morning local time after the public ignored repeated warnings to keep its distance. Authorities had considered relocating the walrus, but ultimately decided the operation was too risky. Marine experts say there’s a chance a sedated marine mammal could drown. Many denounced the decision as a national disgrace. Some raised questions about why authorities didn’t try to move the walrus to a safer area or wait for her to leave on her own when the summer crowds dissipated. Freya’s death “has a strong negative signal that we in Norway, and especially Oslo, are unable to provide living space for wild animals,” the fundraiser’s organizers wrote in their appeal. “By erecting a statue of the symbol Freya has quickly become, we will always remind ourselves (and future generations) that we cannot or should not always kill and remove nature when it is ‘in the way,’” they added. The campaign had raised nearly $20,000 as of Wednesday, and organizers said several sculptors had expressed interest in creating the statue. Should the project not go ahead, any donations will go to the World Wildlife Fund’s Norwegian branch, they said. Officials in Oslo did not immediately respond to a question about whether they had been asked about placing a statue in the city. Walruses usually live in the ice-covered waters of Canada, Greenland, Norway, Russia and Alaska. There are approximately 25,000 Atlantic walruses and 200,000 Pacific walruses in the wild. They usually rest on the sea ice between feeding periods. However, climate change is increasingly driving animals away from their natural habitats. A beluga whale trapped in a river northwest of Paris, far from its Arctic home, died this month as rescuers tried to bring the 13-foot mammal back to shore. Beluga whale dies after French rescuers pull 13-foot-tall mammal from Seine Freya has also appeared along the coasts of several European countries in recent months, including Britain, Denmark and the Netherlands. “Unfortunately, it’s going to get worse as more of these polar species start to come into different waters,” said Karen Stockin, a marine ecologist at New Zealand’s Massey University. New Zealand faces similar challenges in managing marine mammals, including sea lions and leopard seals, which venture into the Pacific nation from Antarctica. ‘Cheeky’ sea lions return to New Zealand shores — and locals learn to share the shore “Our days of having clearer, sharper boundaries between some of these animals and our own existence – with climate change – will dwindle. We will have more overlap in our communities and our coastal environment. And so people should plan for it,” said Stockin, who spent the past few days rescuing a pod of wild dolphins stranded on an island off the coast of Auckland, New Zealand. The frenzy of attention Freja garnered during her time in Oslo – crowds swarming within earshot of the walrus – showed more needs to be done to educate the public about how to stay safe, experts say sea. Officials released a photo Sunday of dozens of people crowded onto a pier near the animal. “You wouldn’t be in the Serengeti and think it’s OK to be up close and personal with a lion,” Stockin said. He said that in cases like Freya’s, authorities should focus on “managing people, not managing animals”. “Something strange happens when it comes to marine mammals. Humans will come much closer than ever to any standard-sized terrestrial wild animal. They are nuts,” Stockin said. “And if it’s not adequately managed by the authorities … it’s the animal that suffers.”
