afp/dpa | The humpback whale, which is in the shallow water off Wismar in the Baltic Sea, is to be encouraged to swim away again today. The water level is expected to rise again by about 30 centimeters during the afternoon, according to the German Oceanographic Museum.
The on-site expert team planned to try to encourage the whale again. “This is done by clapping with the paddle on the water, as the whale must not be touched at all,” said a spokeswoman for the German Oceanographic Museum. “The whale is very weakened. The breathing rate has slowed, and the skin shows secondary infections.”
The humpback whale, which has gone astray in the Baltic Sea and is now lying in the Wismar Bay, showed only a few reactions in the morning. “The chances of survival are, unfortunately, not improving,” Greenpeace expert Franziska Saalmann said on Monday on ZDF’s Morgenmagazin after observing the whale from a ship of the Water Police.
However, the whale continued to breathe, Saalmann said. What makes the animal’s situation difficult is that the water level in the Baltic Sea has currently fallen. “It simply seems to be weakened overall.” There are still hopes that the humpback whale can make it. In general, the Baltic Sea is not suitable for humpback whales. He must “get out of here urgently.”
The humpback whale has been adrift in the Baltic Sea for some time. The rescuers had hoped thus far that he would return via the North Sea to the Atlantic, where he is originally from. After the whale stranded for several days on a sandbank near Timmendorfer Strand and only freed itself there after a rescue operation, he was discovered on Saturday in the Wismar Bay near the Walfisch island. From there, he has not managed to move away yet.
Further rescue operations are not planned at the moment, as the animal could essentially move freely and is not stranded. The authorities in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern have declared a restricted area 500 meters around the humpback whale. The aim is to give the animal the quiet it needs.
Whale had previously become entangled in a net
Since the beginning of March, the whale had repeatedly appeared along the Baltic coast, initially in the port of Wismar, later in the Lübeck Bay and along the coast near Steinbeck (district Nordwestmecklenburg). The animal had become entangled in a net. Rescue crews and Sea Shepherd conservationists had freed it from a portion of the material.
Last Monday morning the marine mammal was then discovered on a sandbank off Timmendorfer Strand near Lübeck. A substantial rescue operation was launched, and in the night to Friday the humpback whale freed itself through a trench dug by an excavator. On Saturday the whale, however, stranded again – this time in the Wismar Bay.
Since then the drama surrounding the humpback whale has continued. In the night to Sunday, as water levels rose, the marine mammal was initially able to free itself from a sandbank off the small island Walfisch in the Wismar Bay. Yet a short time later he was stranded again – nearby, at a depth of about two meters. He appeared motionless on Sunday, only occasionally blowing a fountain of water into the air.
Numerous onlookers this weekend
Authorities have, in their own words, established a no-entry zone within a 500-meter radius around the whale, into which no ship or boat may sail. Numerous spectators stood on the piers over the weekend to catch a glimpse of the animal.
The director of the German Oceanographic Museum in Stralsund, Burkard Baschek, said that the whale lies in a water depth roughly corresponding to that on the night from Sunday when the animal freed itself. He described the latest situation therefore not as a stranding, but as a “settling in” of the whale.
The whale’s nutritional status is good, as Stephanie Groß from the Institute for Terrestrial and Aquatic Wildlife Research at the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover said over the weekend. Humpback whales can go for weeks without food.
