A humpback whale that appeared dead on the Danish coast of Anholt is Timmy, the cetacean that had been stranded for almost two months off Germany and was released two weeks ago after a controversial rescue operation, the Danish Environmental Protection Agency reported this Saturday.
“It is now confirmed that the humpback whale stranded in Anholt is the same whale that had been stranded in Germany and that rescue had been attempted on,” said a representative of the state agency to the Danish news agency Ritzau.
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The whale’s body had appeared this Thursday, but it was not until today that weather conditions allowed employees of the Danish Environmental Protection Agency to inspect it, where they found a GPS transmitter, whose location and appearance allowed the identification of the cetacean.
Till Backhaus, the Environment Minister of the German region of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, also confirmed the news.
“Many people had felt great compassion for the animal’s fate and had hoped that the whale could be released again. I had also shared that hope,” he lamented in statements collected by the tabloid Bild.
The attempts to rescue Timmy, the humpback whale that was stranded several times, the first time in early March, at various points on the German Baltic Sea coast, sparked great media attention in Germany.
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Although scientists warned that the animal had no chance of survival even if transported to deep waters, as it had suffered injuries and was clearly disoriented, social pressure eventually led regional authorities to authorize a private rescue attempt.
After many setbacks and exchanges of accusations, the initiative, funded by entrepreneurs Walter Gunz, co-founder of the consumer electronics retail chain MediaMarkt, and Karin Walter-Mommert, known in the equestrian sports sector, managed to load the whale onto a barge and release it on May 2 in the North Sea.
The release took place about 70 kilometers north of Skagen (Denmark) and the rescue cost more than 1.5 million euros in total.
Since then, and contrary to what was promised, the private initiative had not provided any location data or vital signs of the cetacean, which it intended to monitor, so it was suspected that after releasing the whale in deep waters, it had drowned, unable to swim.
