For days, it remained unclear whether the whale found dead off the Danish coast was Timmy. Authorities have now confirmed that the well-known humpback whale did not survive his journey through the Baltic Sea.
After several days of uncertainty, authorities have confirmed that the dead whale stranded off a Danish island is the humpback whale known as “Timmy”.
The confirmation came from Denmark’s Environmental Protection Agency, according to the Ritzau news agency, with broadcaster TV 2 among the first to report it.
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania’s Environment Minister Till Backhaus has since also confirmed the whale’s death.
Denmark’s nature protection agency, Miljøstyrelsen, said a GPS transmitter was found on the carcass, confirming it was the same humpback whale previously sighted in the Baltic Sea and later stranded off the German coast.
“We can now confirm that the humpback whale stranded off Anholt is the same whale that had previously stranded in Germany,” agency head Jane Hansen said in a written statement.
Authorities have so far been unable to recover the GPS device because of poor weather conditions.
The whale had been released just two weeks ago following a dramatic and highly debated rescue operation after repeatedly becoming stranded along Germany’s Baltic Sea coast, authorities said on Saturday.
Timmy was first spotted off the German coast on March 3. It remains unclear why the humpback whale entered the Baltic Sea, a region far outside its natural habitat and poorly suited to the species. Some marine experts believe the animal may have become disoriented while following shoals of herring or during migration.
It’s almost like all the organizations that had issues with this rescue op and told people to just leave it alone knew what they were talking about.
I guess the great American white whale is still alive though.
Whales are meant to communicate across thousands of miles underwater, its how they navigate and orient themselves to other whales. Humans have introduced such an enormous amount of mechanical underwater noise, that its drowned out anything the whales would normally hear, especially along any major ocean shipping lane.
Humans are disrupting the natural ecosystem of whales, and I’d say its likely this whale is a victim of that.
Should have let this wild animal die in peace. Everyone who wanted to “rescue” it did it for their own selfish reasons.
Meanwhile, millions of animals, thousands of times more weight, have been slaughtered than this one animal with a name.
Hypocritical bullshit. None of those in charge want to do anything substantial for animals
And much worse our actions as a human civilization are right now causing a hothouse world and a mass extinction that will kill much of sentient life on our beautiful lovely planet. It seems to abstract for most people except scientists but I struggle with grief about it. And it is entirely our choice, we are responsible for what is happening.
If people would only understand that we are nothing more than a part of this beautiful world. We are all leaves of one and the same tree of life. The only place in the universe that we know of where life exists. If religions are about cherishing and respecting life, our ancestor’s attempts to pass on what is really important have dramatically failed.
At least he can’t be harassed by German politicians and extremists anymore.
If I were Denmark I’d tow it back to the original beach. Might cost a little more, but you can’t let assholes get away with shitty behaviour.
Ok I may be out of the loop, what happened?
The whale stranded on German coast. German authorities tried to help it but couldn’t. Two German rich people payed for operation that got the whale out and transported it to the North Sea. Experts said the whale would be too weak to survive for long…. and here we are now.
German authorities tried to help it but couldn’t.
It’s not that they couldn’t do anything, they didn’t want to. This was a choice, not something forced by the circumstances.
German authorities, especially the environment minister of the state of Meckelnburg-Vorpommern, where the stranding happened, chose to rather exploit the unfortunate animal for cheap PR instead of doing the right thing. (ending its suffering quickly, or at least leaving it alone, so it can die in peace, and making damn sure everyone else leaves it alone, too)
Depending on the rate of decay there could still be a lot of oil you can extract from it. Also the bones could go to a museum. It would only cause more turmoil in Germany.
Whale, that sucks
No surprise. Anyone with any clue of whales predicted this. Should have done the decent thing and ended the poor animal’s suffering. But tormenting it for imaginary internet points was more important.
You can insert an image with
And get a result like this:
Thanks, I know, but fucked up anyway. Fixed it.
Finally
RIP Timmy
Nur die Geldgeier nennen ihn Timmy, Menschen mit Herz nennen ihn Hope. 🤡
[Hope ist der Name, den Verschwörungstheoretiker & vermeintliche Gutmenschen mit Gier nach Aufmerksamkeit dem armen Tier gegeben haben.]
Timmy konnte nicht in Ruhe sterben, weil: Menschen. Hasse alles daran.
There is no hope.
Timmy is in a better place now.
Can‘t wait for Merz‘ approval rates to drop even lower from this.
Merz didn’t have anything to do with this, for a change. The politician mainly to blame for this pathetic display of attention whoring was the environment minister of the state of Meckelnburg-Vorpommern, Till Backhaus, of the SPD, who was looking to do some cheap pre-election PR at the expense of that unfortunate animal. I hope it blows up right in his face.
