Video Of Stranded Beluga Whales Falsely Linked To Tsunami In Russia

An old video of five beluga whales being stranded on a beach in Russia has surfaced with captions falsely linking it to the earthquake in Russia.

BOOM found the video shows an incident from August, 2023, when a group of fishermen rescued a family of beluga whales that washed ashore in the Tigil district in Russia's Kamchatka peninsula.

Russia's Kamchatka peninsula was hit by an earthquake of magnitude 8.8 on July 30 triggering tsunami alerts in places like French Polynesia, Japan, Hawaii that lies across the Pacific coast.

The Claim

Users shared the video with the caption: "After the tsunami hit Russia, 5 beluga whales got stranded in Kamchatka. Fishermen kept them wet and safe until the tide returned. All 5 made it back to the sea". Click here, here and here to see archives of the posts.

On July 30, 2025, News18 published a report with the video stating that the family of five beluga whales had washed ashore in Russia's far east coast near the epicentre of the earthquake a day before it struck which indicates their disaster sensing abilities. Times Entertainment also published a similar report on July 31, 2025.

What We Found

1. Video from 2023: A reverse image search on the keyframes of the video led to a longer version of the viral video uploaded by ViralBear, a YouTube channel, on August 18, 2023. The caption stated that a family of four adult beluga whales and a calf were washed ashore in the Tigilsky district of Kamchatka, Russia on August 14, 2023.

2. Stranded belugas returned to sea: Quoting local news outlet Kamchatka-Inform Newsweek reported on August 15, 2023, local fishermen rescued the five stranded belugas where they were trapped on the beach near the mouth of the Tigil river. These fishermen had also kept the aquatic mammals fed and hydrated till the tide came back in and they returned. The report also contained a video with the viral visuals.

Also Read:Unrelated Videos Compiled And Shared As Footage Of Russia Earthquake