A humpback whale stranded for days off Germany’s Baltic coast has gotten stuck on another sandbank, a Greenpeace spokeswoman told dpa on Saturday.
The unlucky animal has garnered massive media attention since it ran aground on a sandbank early on Monday off Germany’s Timmendorfer Strand resort, near the city of Lübeck.
Days of efforts to free the 12- to 15-metre whale proved unsuccessful until rescuers dug out a channel in the surrounding sand using a floating excavator on Thursday, allowing the whale to swim free the following night.
However, environmentalists and marine experts had feared that the whale could potentially get stuck again, as it was spotted heading back towards shallower water following its release.
Whale might free itself
Those concerns became reality on Saturday, with the whale spotted stranded on a sandbank in the Bay of Wismar, some 40 kilometres to the east of Timmendorfer Strand, according to Greenpeace.
Incidentally, it was found beached off the unpopulated island of Walfisch, which translates as whale in English.
“After managing to free itself from its [earlier] predicament, the whale was spotted again at midday today in the Bay of Wismar near the island,” said a spokesman for the Environment Ministry of the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
Thilo Maack, a marine biologist with Greenpeace, told dpa that there were no plans to launch another rescue operation on Saturday.
“We want to give the whale the chance to free itself,” he said.
State Environment Minister Till Backhaus said that experts would attempt “to gently nudge” the whale and “guide it towards deeper water” on Sunday if the animal has not managed to swim free by then.
Backhaus noted that there was a deeper channel close to the whale, which might allow it to free itself.
“The whale is still showing signs of trying to swim away,” said Maack, after observing the stranded animal from a dinghy earlier on Saturday. “We therefore hope that it will free itself.”
“The best thing now is to leave the whale completely alone.”
It was currently difficult to assess how the animal was faring, he added, as this depended on the availability of food and how stressed it was.
Water police is to remain on site overnight to keep an eye on the whale, according to Maack, with marine experts scheduled to return to the bay on Sunday.
Continued great interest
Following initial sightings on Saturday, a plethora of concerned officials, scientists and activists had headed to the Bay of Wismar in case the creature needed assistance again.
Large whales such as humpback whales are not native to the Baltic Sea but occasionally end up there after following schools of fish in search of food, for example.
According to experts, underwater noise could also play a role in this whale’s presence in the Baltic Sea.
Biologists had been hoping the whale would make its way back west towards the North Sea, which would have allowed it to reach the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
Following its initial release, conservation groups used dinghies to form a kind of blockade to prevent it from entering shallow water again, trying to guide it further into the deeper waters of the Baltic Sea.
However, the whale was soon spotted further east, off the coast of the Mecklenburg district.
According to the Institute for Terrestrial and Aquatic Wildlife Research, it was impossible to attach a tracking device to the whale because its skin is too diseased.
The “Uecker” (R), a boat belonging to the Water Police, is sailing along the Baltic Sea coast off Boltenhagen. A humpback whale stranded for days off Germany’s Baltic coast has gotten stuck on another sandbank, a Greenpeace spokeswoman says. Philip Dulian/dpa
The “Uecker,” a boat belonging to the water police, and a rubber dinghy are in Wismar Bay. A humpback whale stranded for days off Germany’s Baltic coast has gotten stuck on another sandbank, a Greenpeace spokeswoman says. Philip Dulian/dpa