Beached newborn beluga returned to St. Lawrence River

While the calf integrated into the pod, no female showed signs of adopting it.

“For now, we do not yet know the outcome of the story,” Michaud told Le Devoir.

“It is estimated that the probability of a rescue like this works are very low.”

St. Lawrence belugas in need of help

Michaud called the St. Lawrence beluga situation “increasingly precarious.”

He said there were already two female whale carcasses found this year, and there is a unusally high mortality rate among the whales.

The population, which was over 100,000 a century ago, is just under 900 today – less than one per cent of what it once was.

World Wildlife Fund Canada says the belugas are endangered and said they are affected by pollution in the water.

“In fact, toxins in belugas reach such high levels that some beluga carcasses have had to be classified as ‘toxic waste,’” WWF-Canada representative Emily Giles wrote in a blog post.