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Beluga whales under threat

Summer doesn't last long on the edge of the Arctic circle, but on the remote Solovetsky Island on Russia's White Sea it marks the remarkable return every year of Beluga whales just metres from the shore.

Scientists say it is the only place in the world where the whales come so close. Like many whales worldwide, these belugas are threatened - not by hunting but by the quest for energy and people's gradual encroachment on their habitat through shipping.

The whales come most days in good weather. Highly gregarious, the adult white mammals frolic and twist together with their calves, sometimes in schools of 50, lazily breaking the surface with their long backs, before diving underwater again at a location now known as Beluga Cape.

Described by environmentalists as one of Russia's national treasures, the beluga - which resemble large dolphins - will be fighting for survival as the Arctic develops and shipping, energy projects and pollution threaten their natural habitat.