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Rescuers Abandon Hope for Whale Stranded Off German Island
Officials said the weakened whale had been stranded four times and was too weak to survive further rescue attempts.
- German officials announced on Wednesday that rescue efforts for the young humpback whale "Timmy" will stop after experts concluded the animal "no longer has strength" to survive.
- After first beaching itself at Timmendorf Beach on March 23, Timmy stranded on a sandbank off Schleswig-Holstein and was freed using excavators, later becoming stuck again in Wismar Bay.
- Rescue expert Burkard Baschek noted the whale's "reaction to our presence was virtually zero" while lying in shallow waters off the island of Poel, suffering from severe skin problems and fishing net remnants.
- Officials have established a restricted zone in the Baltic Sea to allow the creature to "die in peace," determining that further movement would amount to animal cruelty given slim survival chances.
- Till Backhaus, environment minister for Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, said "We have explored all ideas," noting the 12-to-15-meter whale chose this path, citing "respect for nature" in the decision to let it go.
32 Articles
32 Articles
He was one of the whale helpers on the Baltic Sea coast: Till Backhaus, Environment Minister of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, comes close to the fate of the animal. That's why he made the rescue operation the chief thing.
The German authorities and the experts announced on Wednesday the cessation of attempts to rescue the stranded whale on the Baltic coast, probably condemned, a different fact that has been moving all Germany for ten days.
The stranded humpback whale will probably die – this message brought Mecklenburg-Vorpommern's Environment Minister Till Backhaus to the public. About a star hour of palliative-political communication.
No further attempts are being made to rescue the humpback whale off the German coast. After the animal had to be freed multiple times over the past few days, it is once again stranded in a shallow area of the Baltic Sea. The humpback is too sick and too weak to swim away on its own, experts conclude.
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