Timmy the Whale Confirmed Dead by Danish Authorities After Failed Rescue

Timmy the whale, a humpback calf, was confirmed dead by Danish authorities on Saturday, two weeks after a costly rescue attempt that critics called “pure animal cruelty.”

Denmark’s Environmental Protection Agency reported that a whale carcass was found Friday near the island of Anholt in the Kattegat strait, and confirmed it was Timmy on Saturday.

Jane Hansen, division head at the Danish Environmental Protection Agency, said in a statement: “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 added that conditions on Saturday allowed a Danish Nature Agency employee to retrieve a tracking device from 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 10-meter-long calf gained global attention after being stranded on Timmendorfer beach, a sandbank in shallow waters off Germany’s coast, nearly two months ago.

As its health declined, German officials abandoned rescue efforts, believing the whale could not be freed.

However, a national outcry led two German millionaires to offer to pay “whatever it costs” to release the creature.

The rescue attempt, estimated to cost about €1.5 million (£1.3 million), involved floating Timmy onto a water-filled barge towed from Wismar Bay near Lübeck to deeper waters off Denmark’s coast.

The International Whaling Commission criticized the rescue as “inadvisable” because the juvenile male, nicknamed Timmy after the beach, appeared “severely compromised” and unlikely to survive.

Experts from the Oceanographic Museum in Stralsund also recommended allowing Timmy to die peacefully.

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 possibly entangled in fishing net.

Museum director Burkard Baschek warned that attempting to save Timmy amounted to “pure animal cruelty.”

After release into the North Sea on May 2, the whale was seen blowing through its blowhole and swimming “in the right direction,” according to Karin Walter-Mommert from the rescue initiative.

Later, a tracker intended to monitor Timmy’s progress malfunctioned. In a joint statement, Walter-Mommert and co-financier Walter Gunz distanced themselves from the release method.

“We hereby expressly distance ourselves from the events and the manner in which the whale was abandoned,” they wrote, calling for consequences to be borne “by the owner, the operators, and any crew members of the ships Fortuna B and Robin Hood.”

The whale was found dead about 70 kilometers (45 miles) south of its release site two weeks ago.

Hansen stated that Danish authorities have “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.”

She urged the public to avoid the carcass due to potential disease risks.

Speaking to the Guardian on Friday before the whale’s identity was confirmed, Amy Dickham, a professor of wildlife conservation at the University of Oxford, highlighted lessons from the case.

“It’s really striking that there’s been such a focus on this individual animal at such great cost during a time of great crisis for wildlife funding around the world,” she said.

“It is really questionable whether it was a good use of funds, particularly compared with issues that impact much greater numbers of whales, such as collisions with vessels and entanglements with fishing gear.”