Whale, dead rat, cat or pigeon: Which animal is the best spy? | Explainer News

Hvaldimir, a white beluga whale believed to have been used as a Russian spy, was found dead in suspicious circumstances in Norway near Russian waters last weekend while wearing a harness, according to animal welfare groups.

The beluga – named after the Norwegian word for whale, “hval”, and part of Russian President Vladimir Putin's first name, “Dimir” – was pulled out of the water by crane and transported to a nearby port for examination by experts.

In 2019, the beluga attracted worldwide attention when fishermen found him off the Norwegian coast. Hvaldimir was wearing a camera harness marked “Equipment St. Petersburg.” This raised suspicions in the West that the whale might have been part of a Russian naval program that trained aquatic animals to be spies – but others argued that Hvaldimir might have been trained to provide therapy to disabled children.

Marine biologist Sebastian Strand, founder of the Norwegian nonprofit Marine Mind, which works to protect the oceans and marine life, has been following Hvaldimir for more than three years.

“Unfortunately, we found Hvaldimir floating in the sea. He died, but the cause of death is not yet clear,” Strand told Norwegian public broadcaster NRK.

Although the whale's cause of death is unclear and Hvaldimir – like the best secret agents – never left any solid evidence that he was a spy, his story is only the latest in a long history of nations using animals as spies.

So who was Hvaldimir, which animals were previously used for espionage – and who was the most successful?

Who was Hvaldimir?

Hvaldimir, the 4.2-metre-long, 1,225-kg whale, was first spotted by fishermen near the northern Norwegian island of Ingoya in 2019. He is believed to have been 14 or 15 years old when he died, less than half the average life expectancy of a beluga whale of around 30 years.

Before his death, the beluga was spotted in several Norwegian coastal towns and over the years he was even seen interacting with fishermen and even retrieving a kayaker's dropped GoPro.

Controversy over how Hvaldimir died

Marine Mind is not the only marine nonprofit that has observed this famous beluga in recent years.

Since 2019, a team from OneWhale, another non-profit organization, has been present in Norway, closely monitoring Hvaldimir's activities, behavior and interactions with the public.

Regina Haug, the founder of OneWhale, suspects that Hvaldimir’s death was “not a natural death”.

In a series of video messages on Instagram, Haug said: “The common misinformation is that Hvaldimir had no physical damage and no visible injuries at the time of his death. It is suspected that Hvaldimir died of natural causes, such as heart failure.”

But, she said, there were “some very noticeable holes where the blood was coming from his [Hvaldimir’s] Body”.

Were other animals used as spies?

Yes, a lot of it. Before sophisticated listening devices and tiny spy cameras, some the size of a shirt button, it was a challenge to transport secret information over long distances.

Carrier pigeons have been used for centuries to transmit messages and communications, even during wars. During World War I, the German military used pigeons equipped with specially designed cameras for surveillance.

Pigeons were later used for espionage by the Allies during World War II. According to declassified documents, pigeons equipped with miniature cameras were flown into the Soviet Union to take photographs of sensitive locations as part of the CIA's Operation Tacana in the 1970s.

Not only pigeons, cats, whales, dolphins, other birds and even dead animals have served as covert agents. The CIA, for example, once trained ravens to place listening devices on windowsills.

Dolphins with a mysterious past

During the Cold War, the Soviet Navy conducted various programs using marine mammals, one of which was the training of dolphins in the area around Sevastopol. The US Navy also used dolphins as part of its Marine Mammal Program (MMP), which used the animals for underwater surveillance and intelligence gathering.

In the 1960s, the CIA launched Project OXYGAS, which trained dolphins to attach explosive devices to enemy ships. Two captured wild bottlenose dolphins were used for the program.

In 2019, a declassified agency report on the program said that OXYGAS “is considered more than justified provided the feasibility of delivering a simulated weapons package over an open sea distance to a propeller of an anchored PT can be demonstrated. [patrol torpedo] Boat”.

According to a British intelligence report last year, Russia has launched a mammal program at its Sevastopol naval base in Crimea to train dolphins to detect and “fight off” enemy divers.

At the time, British military satellite images showed a significant increase in the number of floating mammal enclosures in the port of Sevastopol between April and June 2023.

Secret cats

Dolphins are among the most intelligent animals in the world. But cats are also considered clever.

In the 1960s, the CIA developed another project called Operation Acoustic Kitty. The goal was to install microphones in the ears of cats to secretly record conversations in their environment – for example, near Soviet diplomats and agents.

The idea was clear: a cat, a common pet, would not be suspicious in public or indoors. Although the technology worked, cats are not easy to control. During field trials, they could not be controlled and instructed to go to certain places, which resulted in the “spy cats” going wherever they wanted to go.

The program was finally canceled in 1967. The cost was estimated at $20 million.

Dead rats

The CIA's experiments were not limited to cats.

A common practice in the espionage industry is the so-called “dead drop,” in which an agent leaves a message or document at a predetermined location for someone else to pick up.

During the Cold War, the CIA's Office of Technical Services proposed using dead rats to conceal secret messages that could be picked up by officials. The dead rat's carcass would be treated with a preservative and the inside hollowed out to conceal notes, secret photographs or films. The idea: Most people would find the body of a dead rat so repulsive that they wouldn't even go near it.

But field tests revealed a challenge the agency hadn't thought of: dead rats might make people turn up their noses, but cats lick their lips. Cats would pick up the dead letter boxes before the agent could reach them.

So the CIA tried soaking the preserved rat carcasses in hot sauce and cayenne pepper to make them less palatable to cats. The strategy had mixed results. Eventually they settled on wormwood oil, which served as an effective deterrent.

The best spies: The winner is …

But even though cats and dead rats have their advantages, over the years secret services have repeatedly resorted to an ancient cadre of agents: pigeons.

A very successful espionage program of British intelligence during World War II was Operation Columba, a carrier pigeon program. Carrier pigeons collected information about German military activities and sensitive military positions.

The tiny messages, written on rice paper, were placed in containers and tied to the bird's leg. Many of these secret messages contained Nazi troop movements, reports of new Nazi weapons, and planned rocket attacks.

According to Gordon Corera, author of Operation Columba: The Secret Pigeon Service, between 1941 and 1944, British intelligence dropped 16,000 carrier pigeons over Nazi-occupied Europe, from Bordeaux, France, to Copenhagen, Denmark.

They delivered around 1,000 messages to London, using their superpower – the almost surreal ability to find their way home no matter where they were left behind.

Birds have also served as inspiration for spy technology more generally. In August, China unveiled a military spy drone disguised as a bird.

But pigeons are also victims of their own success as spies.

India's obsession with pigeon spies

In May 2020, villagers in Indian-administered Kashmir captured a pigeon they thought was a spy pigeon from Pakistan. The captured bird had a ring with a series of numbers on it. The villagers handed the pigeon over to local police, who launched an investigation to decipher the number – they suspected it was a code.

But eventually they came to the conclusion that the pigeon was not a spy – and released it.

In October 2016, another pigeon was found with a letter threatening the Indian Prime Minister. The pigeon was discovered in Pathankot in the northern Indian state of Punjab and taken into custody.

In May 2023, a pigeon found in Mumbai was held for eight months on suspicion of being a Chinese spy. The alleged spy pigeon had rings on its legs and what appeared to be Chinese writing on the underside of its wings. Authorities eventually concluded it was a Taiwanese racer and released it in February.