Whale specimen moves into new museum building in Freiburg
Keystone-SDA
A whale embarked on an unusual journey in Fribourg, western Switzerland, on Tuesday. The 11-metre, 1,650-kilo taxidermy specimen is one of the attractions at the Natural History Museum.
This content was published on
August 25, 2026 – 15:44
It was moved to the institution’s new premises. The whale, which is over 170 years old, was carefully packed and transported a distance of 600 metres. It is the very first object to be brought to the institution’s future building on the Route des Arsenaux.
According to the museum, the transport by lorry was an “extraordinary undertaking” that brought together technology, logistics and heritage conservation.
The taxidermied whale is regarded as an icon of the museum. “Every visitor has had an emotional encounter with it,” Peter Wandeler, director of the Natural History Museum, told the Swiss News Agency Keystone-SDA.
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The animal, which beached itself in Le Havre, France, in 1852, found its way – via a series of adventures – into the collection of the Natural History Museum in Fribourg in 1882.
The whale already has experience of moving house: as far back as 1897, when the Natural History Museum moved to its current location in the Pérolles district, the specimen caused the museum’s managers at the time no end of headaches.
In 2023, Fribourg voters approved a loan of CHF65.5 million ($81.6 million) for the relocation of the Natural History Museum to the former armoury.
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Translated from German, reviewed by an English Department journalist.
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