{"id":749756,"date":"2026-08-26T00:10:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T00:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/749756\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T00:10:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T00:10:11","slug":"whale-moves-into-new-swiss-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/749756\/","title":{"rendered":"Whale moves into new Swiss home"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>    <img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/ac78b9175cd5f3b733544ebf9454086ff20ae8a7-91951059.jpg\" width=\"1400\" height=\"1050\" alt=\"Whale specimen moves into new museum building in Freiburg\" loading=\"eager\" decoding=\"sync\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                Whale specimen moves into new museum building in Freiburg            <\/p>\n<p>            Keystone-SDA        <\/p>\n<p>        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.\n<\/p>\n<p>        This content was published on    <\/p>\n<p>        August 25, 2026 &#8211; 15:44\n<\/p>\n<p>It was moved to the institution\u2019s 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\u2019s future building on the Route des Arsenaux.<\/p>\n<p>According to the museum, the transport by lorry was an \u201cextraordinary undertaking\u201d that brought together technology, logistics and heritage conservation.<\/p>\n<p>The taxidermied whale is regarded as an icon of the museum. \u201cEvery visitor has had an emotional encounter with it,\u201d Peter Wandeler, director of the Natural History Museum, told the Swiss News Agency Keystone-SDA.<\/p>\n<p>\n    More<\/p>\n<p>    <img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/364828900_highres.jpg\" width=\"1300\" height=\"873\" alt=\"whale being winched off a boat into a port\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"auto\"\/><\/p>\n<p>        More    <\/p>\n<p>        International Geneva\n        <\/p>\n<p>        Is Japanese commercial whaling compatible with international law?    <\/p>\n<p class=\"teaser-wide-card__excerpt\">\n<p>                        This content was published on                    <\/p>\n<p>                        Aug 23, 2024                    <\/p>\n<p>                The possible extradition of Sea Shepherd activist Paul Watson to Japan has raised questions about the global rules for commercial whaling \u2013 a practice officially banned in 1986.            <\/p>\n<p>    <a class=\"teaser-wide-card__link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.swissinfo.ch\/eng\/international-geneva\/is-japanese-commercial-whaling-compatible-with-international-law\/87346508\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><\/p>\n<p>            Read more: Is Japanese commercial whaling compatible with international law?<br \/>\n    <\/a><\/p>\n<p>The animal, which beached itself in Le Havre, France, in 1852, found its way \u2013 via a series of adventures \u2013 into the collection of the Natural History Museum in Fribourg in 1882.<\/p>\n<p>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 P\u00e9rolles district, the specimen caused the museum\u2019s managers at the time no end of headaches.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>+\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.swissinfo.ch\/eng\/about-us\/how-swissinfo-produces-news-in-english\/91695684\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">How we produce news in English<\/a><br \/>Translated from German, reviewed by an\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.swissinfo.ch\/eng\/department\/english-department\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">English Department<\/a>\u00a0journalist.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>        Articles in this story    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Whale specimen moves into new museum building in Freiburg Keystone-SDA A whale embarked on an unusual journey in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":749757,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[233,18467,913,54838,90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-749756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-article","tag-beat-various","tag-latest-news","tag-production-type-deepl-autotranslation","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=749756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/749757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=749756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=749756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=749756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}