But the whale was fake.
The hyper-real looking statue formed part of an art installation by the Belgian artists’ collective Captain Boomer.
Around the sculpture, members of the collective dressed as researchers took measurements and threw buckets of water onto the mammal replica.
According to the collective’s website, the installation entitled Whale “is a gigantic metaphor for the disruption of our ecological system.”
London, Paris and other European cities have hosted the installation in previous years