The death brought a sad end to weeks of efforts to guide the whale back to its natural habitat, which culminated with the mammal being transported to the North Sea in a barge.
A humpback whale transported toward the North Sea in a flooded cargo ship has been found dead just off the small Danish island of Anholt.in a spectacular and contentious rescue effort, after repeatedly becoming stranded off Germany’s Baltic Sea coast, authorities said Saturday.
Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content. The dead whale was stranded Thursday just off the small island of Anholt in the Kattegat, the broad strait between Denmark and Sweden that connects the Baltic Sea to the North Sea.
The site is south of the location about 45 miles from Skagen, on the northern tip of Denmark, where the whale that gained the nicknames “Timmy” and “Hope” was released on May 2 after being transported toward the North Sea in a barge.
“It can now be confirmed that the stranded humpback whale near Anholt is the same whale that was previously stranded in Germany and was the subject of rescue attempts,” Jane Hansen, head of division at the Danish Environmental Protection Agency, said in an emailed statement. She added that conditions on Saturday made it possible for a Danish Nature Agency employee to locate and retrieve a tracking device that was still fastened to the whale’s back, and “the position and appearance of the device confirm that this is the same whale that had previously been observed and handled in German waters.
” The finding brought a sad end to weeks of efforts to guide the mammal back to its natural habitat in the Atlantic Ocean. The whale was first spotted off the German coast on March 3. It’s not clear why it swam into the Baltic Sea, which is far from its habitat and it wasn’t suited to, although some experts said it may have lost its way while swimming after a shoal of herring or during migration.
In late March, it was rescued from shallow water in the German Baltic resort town of Timmendorfer Strand with the help of an excavator, but it soon ran into trouble again nearby. Local media produced dayslong livestreams, and news sites alerted readers to the smallest developments in the whale’s situation.
At the beginning of April, experts said that they had given up hope for the whale and expected it to die in the inlet where it was stranded at the time. But the whale’s deteriorating condition prompted a controversy that drew in privately funded rescuers, regional authorities and the scientific community. Activists staged protests calling for the animal’s rescue, while influencers debated the best way to help it.
Some scientists said that further rescue efforts would in themselves cause the ailing and exhausted animal severe stress. The regional government in Germany’s Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania state allowed a private rescue initiative to go ahead with the ambitious effort to pull the whale onto a flooded barge. The initiative confirmed that the number on the tracking device found on the dead animal corresponded with the one that had been attached to the whale, German news agency dpa reported.
It noted that it wasn’t possible to say conclusively what caused the whale’s death. Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania’s environment minister, Till Backhaus, said Saturday that the effort had given the whale “a last chance to recover its freedom and health,” but it hadn’t been able to take that chance. He said that it will be important to learn “the best possible lessons” from the episode.
Backhaus stressed in a statement that “acquiescing to the rescue attempt doesn’t constitute criticism of science” and added: “I think it is absolutely human to use even the smallest chance when a life is at stake. ”Hansen said “at this time, there are no concrete plans to remove the whale from the area or to perform a necropsy, and it is not currently considered to pose a problem in the area.
” But she said that it’s important to stay away from it because of the possibility it may carry diseases and other reasons.
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Dead whale speculation after release of rescued humpback whale TimmyA dead whale has washed up off the coast of Denmark, fueling speculation that it could be Timmy, a humpback whale rescued earlier this month in a £1.3million operation. Timmy, whose health had severely deteriorated after being stranded near Germany since March, was released on May 2 after being transported in a water-filled barge by rescuers. But just days after Timmy entered the North Sea off Denmark, and following a lack of tracking data, the German Oceanographic Museum determined he didn't survive the transition to deep water.
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Dead whale speculation after release of rescued humpback whale TimmyA dead whale has washed up off the coast of Denmark, fueling speculation that it could be Timmy, a humpback whale rescued earlier this month in a £1.3million operation. Timmy, whose health had severely deteriorated after being stranded near Germany since March, was released on May 2 after being transported in a water-filled barge by rescuers. But just days after Timmy entered the North Sea off Denmark, and following a lack of tracking data, the German Oceanographic Museum determined he didn't survive the transition to deep water.
Read more »
Dead whale speculation after release of rescued humpback whale TimmyA dead whale has washed up off the coast of Denmark, fueling speculation that it could be Timmy, a humpback whale rescued earlier this month in a £1.3million operation. Timmy, whose health had severely deteriorated after being stranded near Germany since March, was released on May 2 after being transported in a water-filled barge by rescuers. But just days after Timmy entered the North Sea off Denmark, and following a lack of tracking data, the German Oceanographic Museum determined he didn't survive the transition to deep water.
Read more »
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Read more »