A barge carrying a stranded humpback whale nicknamed Timmy has begun its journey toward the North Sea.
A barge carrying a stranded humpback whale has started its journey toward the North Sea.
The humpback whale recovered from a shallow bay off Wismar is being transported towards the North Sea in a flooded cargo ship just before the Danish border in Fehmarn, Germany, Wednesday, April 29, 2026.
The humpback whale recovered from a shallow bay off Wismar is being transported towards the North Sea by two tugboats in a flooded cargo ship off the Danish coast, in Fehmarn, Germany, Wednesday, April 29, 2026.
BERLIN () — A barge carrying a humpback whale that had been stranded in shallow waters near Germany since March has begun its journey toward the North Sea.
It reached Danish waters on Wednesday, German authorities said.
Nicknamed Timmy by German media, the whale was spotted swimming near Germany’s Baltic Sea coast on March 3, far from its natural habitat in the Atlantic Ocean.
The mammal’s health deteriorated as it became repeatedly stranded in shallow waters, and unsuccessful efforts to coax it toward deeper seas were livestreamed across the globe.
Rescuers on Tuesday pulled the whale to a flooded barge using straps and a channel previously dredged to create a passage to the vessel, the Germany press agency dpa reported.
The barge is now expected to go around the northern tip of Denmark via the strait of Skagerrak toward the North Sea.
“Something like this has never happened before in Germany, where a life-saving operation of this kind has been carried out,” Till Backhaus, minister for climate protection, agriculture, rural areas and the environment of the federal state of Mecklenburg Vorpommern, told a press conference.
“And this was an experiment, and the experiment was a success, and that’s wonderful.”.
The minister said the whale was resting peacefully and on Tuesday night it vocalized, which meant it was doing well.
The minister had given the green light for the latest attempt to save the whale, proposed by a private initiative, despite some warnings from the scientific community that it may be too much for the animal.
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