Animal rights groups said they had filed a complaint with Norwegian police asking them to open a "criminal investigation."

Animal rights groups on Wednesday said gunfire killed a beluga whale that rose to fame in Norway after its unusual harness sparked suspicions the creature was trained by Russia as a spy.

The organizations NOAH and One Whale said they had filed a complaint with Norwegian police asking them to open a “criminal investigation.”

Nicknamed “Hvaldimir” in a pun on the Norwegian word for whale, hval, and its purported ties to Moscow, the white beluga first appeared off the coast in Norway’s far-northern Finnmark region in 2019.