German minister defends whale rescue attempt as ‘perfectly human’

The German authorities have defended their decision to allow a risky rescue attempt of a stranded whale to proceed, despite expert warnings that the animal was unlikely to survive due to its injuries.

The whale, known as Timmy, had captivated Germany since it was first spotted stranded on a sandbank near Timmendorfer beach in shallow coastal waters nearly two months ago.

Danish authorities confirmed the whale’s death Saturday, two weeks after it was transported to the North Sea as part of the rescue operation.

Denmark’s Environmental Protection Agency reported Friday that a whale had been found dead near the small island of Anholt in the Kattegat strait between Denmark and Sweden, confirming it was Timmy on Saturday.

The agency advised people to stay away from the carcass due to potential disease risks, but Bild newspaper reported Sunday that two people had apparently posed for selfies next to the body.

Till Backhaus, the Social Democratic environment minister for the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, insisted he was right to allow the privately funded mission, saying it was “perfectly human to seize even the slightest opportunity.”

In comments reported by Bild, he added: “It was always a matter of weighing up which option was the worst: waiting for the animal’s certain death in agony or giving him one last chance and potentially exposing him to stress.”

German officials initially abandoned efforts to save the whale, believing it could not be freed from its stranded location, but after a national outcry, two millionaires offered to pay “whatever it costs” to release the creature.

The rescue attempt, believed to have cost about €1.5 million (£1.3 million), involved floating the whale off the sandbanks into a water-filled barge, towed by a tugboat from Wismar Bay near Lübeck to deeper waters off the Danish coast.

The International Whaling Commission criticized the mission as “inadvisable,” noting the male juvenile appeared “severely compromised” and unlikely to survive release, while experts from the Oceanographic Museum in Stralsund recommended letting the whale die in peace.

The young whale was described as lethargic, weak, and covered in blister-like blemishes after weeks in low-salinity water, with parts of its mouth believed entangled in fishing net.

Jane Hansen, a division head at the Danish Environmental Protection Agency, said Saturday: “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.”

She said conditions Saturday allowed a Danish Nature Agency employee to locate and retrieve a tracking device 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.”

Hansen said Danish authorities had “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.”