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A famous walrus is killed and the Norwegians are divided

OSLO – It’s another good day for Freya, the 1,300-pound walrus named for the Norse goddess of love, beauty and war, who has become a beloved international media sensation. and feel good, the frolicking mascot of the long Oslo summer.

She spent the day, August 13, diving from a moored boat to a crowded marina, enjoying clams, and then returning to sleep on deck for hours. Christian Ytteborg, 47, a marina employee who spotted her in the morning, called authorities to help protect her.

Soon after, he said, a patrol boat loaded with “four nice guys” from the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries came to help. They ate mussels together and shared a burst of laughter through a close-up video of one of the men snapping shots of a fake walrus on a boat that a teenage marina worker later scored for Louis Theroux raps, “I want to see you wiggle, sway. “

But when night fell, and Freya was left alone, the Fisheries specialists set to work. Surname Freya’s execution with what their boss, Frank Bakke-Jensen, the former Norwegian defense minister, later called “the bullets fit for the job.” They covered her body in a tarp, cut the boat’s ropes and dragged their victim away, bringing the ship back the next day, empty and clean, without a trace.

On Monday, the corpse was half-frozen to a nearby anatomical laboratory. “It’s in pieces,” said Knut Madslien, a senior scientist in the health monitoring department of the Norwegian Veterinary Institute. “So you won’t realize that this is a walrus anymore. That’s how we do it.”

The Freya carnage has now polarized Oslo and threatens to change the image of a country associated with love of nature, diplomatic philanthropy and the Nobel Peace Prize into one that beats a sunbather. and swaying with crowd-like effect.

In a land that loves dark detective stories, the blow to Freya has emerged as a summer killing spree, a sea mystery less about who triggers than about who ultimately suffers. responsible for the death of a wrinkly international darling. Victim advocates are raising money to build a statue in her honor. Politicians are asking for congressional hearings. Scientists are looking at an invasive species of Pacific oyster that may have lured it to its death.

Mr Bakke-Jensen and his wife received death threats (“Karma is a bitch”) which led to him lamenting “irrational force”. Mr Ytteborg, the marina worker who was enamored with Freya, said he felt “betrayed” by “a death squad”.

“They didn’t have to kill it,” said Marius Løkse, 48, who paused lecturing the children on her fleet of small replica Viking boats to blame her death on dark political forces and capitalists interested in protecting their yachts. “We would love to have this walrus here,” he said. “She may have settled down.”

Norway’s Directorate of Fisheries, which at first seemed to welcome Freya, became alarmed as people got closer and closer to a very large wild animal. They warn everyone to leave her alone. But Norwegians, parents and often children, don’t heed their warnings.

Authorities said they noticed a change in Freya’s behavior, fueled by crowds of angry social media users. Fearing a terrible accident, someone getting injured, they gave the Norwegians an ultimatum to withdraw.

“Possibility to green light a controlled operation to bring down the animal,” warn a fishery official On August 11. Officials said they weighed her darts but determined that she would just drown. On Friday, they decided that she would no longer swim with the fish.

When Norwegians assign crimes, the perpetrators, as usual, are likely to be those closest to the victim.

“They wanted a selfie, a hug with it. Best Friends Forever,” said Kjell Jonsson, 44, who carried a kayak on his right shoulder after giving a lecture. “All those who can’t leave her alone.”

Solmund Nystabakk, 40, who watched his son shoot cannons into the fjord at the Edvard Munch museum, says the moment a wild animal emerges out of its natural habitat, people project its personality. “All the Free Willys, the large water mammals in the broader popular culture, contribute to it,” he said. “But animals have nothing to do with human intentions. It can be interested in a lot of things, but its main goal is to survive, to feed.”

And some locals were scared about being fed.

Håkon Øverås, a 60-year-old film producer, didn’t want to get in the water at the end of July, but his girlfriend urged him to take a dip in his boat in Kongen Marina. “Let’s hope the walrus isn’t here,” he joked. Minutes later, his girlfriend, due to the return of cold water temperatures, spotted Freya from the deck. “Here it is!” she shouted.

Mr. Øverås splashed towards the ladder. Freya crouched within six feet of his feet as he lifted himself up. “It stalks you,” he said. On the train, his heart was pounding and he thought of escape routes. The walrus barks strangely. “It has this big beard,” he said. “Dirty.”

The others also found Freya displeased. “You can’t eat walrus, it tastes like fish liver,” said Kay Johnsen, 56, owner of Engebret Café, the city’s oldest restaurant, which serves rare whale steak in the spring. snow. “You would have to leave it in the milk for a long time just to get rid of the smell.”

To many others in Oslo, Freya is the perfect person.

Erik Holm, 32, was in his apartment with his girlfriend when he heard the news of her murder. The execution hit a nerve. Its secret. Coldness. Decide to punish animals instead of people. “What do you say to the kids when you kill a walrus?” he say. He decided he needed to do something. Something big.

He’s done great things before. He is the man behind the construction of Norway’s largest water slide, a 300 meter long pipeline in central Oslo. He has set up a social networking site for the kids in the club to share rumors about each other. And best of all, Mr. Holm, who is of Swedish descent, has worked on social media campaigns for his favorite Swedish team, helping to build an online following and monument to the founder. set up a team.

Then it suddenly recognized him.

“Why isn’t there a statue?” he say. “Let people see it, touch it, know her size.”

In less than an hour, he created an Instagram account and the sourcing call of the crowd. He likes it with his own page, @Norway, which has almost 500,000 followers. Friends and influential celebrities like it, he said, “and make it fly,” while anti-Freya forces troll his mentions. (“Go buy yourself a teddy.”) By Friday afternoon, it had raised more than 238,826 Norwegian kroner, or about $24,290.

The boat in which Freya spent her last hours belonged to Fredrik Walsoe, 46, a real estate developer who was away at the time. When a friend told him a walrus was on his boat, he said, he realized it wasn’t covered and thought, “Can I really be this unlucky? “

On Wednesday, when he went to retrieve golf clubs from his daytime yacht, he showed rips in the tarp that Freya had made with her ivory. He wondered if she was trying to get some of the chips he’d kept in the cabin.

“I’m sorry they had to kill it, but that’s the way,” he said. “Everybody wants it to mean something.”

As the city carried out the assassination, Mr. Madslien and his veterinarians, who had dissected Freya and drawn blood for Covid to rule out other diseases, were preparing a report. Freya has reduced to dozens of blood and organ samples stored in a freezing chamber that he compares to a vending machine.

To prevent the spread of pathogens, the procedure stipulates that the remains of Freya must be dissolved with lye in “a big pot, and I mean, a really big pot.”

“The end product,” he says, “is a gel.”

This is a horror that some Freya fans can’t believe. But Mr. Øverås, who has been humming the theme song from “Jaws” since the July scare, is unharmed.

“Now that I know it’s dead,” he said, “I’m going swimming.”

Report contributed by Henrik Pryser Libell in Oslo and Claire Moses in London.

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