"Where’s Freya?" That’s the question of the summer in Norway, where a young female walrus has shot to stardom by traveling the country's coastline, feeding in local harbors and crushing small boats with her hefty frame.
Norway has been enthralled for months by the marine mammal, whose celebrity status has reached such heights that she is now known only by her first name.
"Freya is back in Oslo," one local media outlet reported of the celebrity sighting. "Freya found in Snarøykilen in Bærum," another said. Updates are almost daily: "Freya is fine — Keep your distance!"
Norwegians have flocked to watch the walrus eat, sunbathe and — mostly — sleep on boats for days or weeks at a time in harbors along the country's southeastern coastline. But the boats can’t always support her weight, which Norway's Directorate of Fisheries estimates is around 1,300 pounds.
Even the sturdiest vessel tips as she clambers aboard, and her preference — rigid inflatable boats that sit low to the water and are easy to board — eventually crumple beneath her.
Walruses typically live in herds in the Arctic, so a lone walrus in the capital Oslo's busy Frognerkilen harbor — some 1,200 miles from Svalbard, where scientists believe she may be from — is an unusual sight.
Freya is choosing empty boats on which to sleep and digest her food because they remind her of Arctic ice floes, Kathrine Ryeng, a veterinary medicine scientist at Norway's Institute of Marine Research, told NBC News.
People should give Freya a wide berth and park vessels so they're harder for her to climb into, said Ryeng, who has been advising the Directorate of Fisheries on how to keep Freya, the public and their property safe. The walrus seems to be in good health and is only dangerous if you get too close, especially in the water itself.
"These animals are like potato sacks on a floating device, but like acrobats in water," she said.
While nobody has been injured by Freya's antics, she is causing a headache for emergency services and boat owners.
