Humpback whale released after spectacular rescue effort found dead off Denmark

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BERLIN (AP) — A humpback whale found dead this week off a Danish island has been identified as the animal released two weeks ago in a spectacular and contentious rescue effort, after repeatedly becoming stranded off Germany's Baltic Sea coast, authorities said Saturday.

The dead whale was stranded on Thursday just off the small island of Anholt in the Kattegat, the broad strait between Denmark and Sweden that connects the Baltic Sea to the North Sea.

The site is south of the location about 70 kilometers (around 45 miles) from Skagen, on the northern tip of Denmark, where the whale that gained the nicknames “Timmy” and “Hope” was released on May 2 after being transported toward the North Sea in a barge.

“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," Jane Hansen, head of division at the Danish Environmental Protection Agency, said in an emailed statement.

She added that conditions on Saturday made it possible for a Danish Nature Agency employee to locate and retrieve a tracking device that was still fastened to 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 finding brought a sad end to weeks of efforts to guide the mammal back to its natural habitat in the Atlantic Ocean.

The whale was first spotted off the German coast on March 3. It's not clear why it swam into the Baltic Sea, which is far from its habitat and it wasn’t suited to, although some experts said it may have lost its way while swimming after a shoal of herring or during migration.

In late March, it was rescued from shallow water in the German Baltic resort town of Timmendorfer Strand with the help of an excavator, but it soon ran into trouble again nearby. Local media produced dayslong livestreams, and news sites alerted readers to the smallest developments in the whale's situation.

At the beginning of April, experts said that they had given up hope for the whale and expected it to die in the inlet where it was stranded at the time.

But the whale's deteriorating condition prompted a controversy that drew in privately funded rescuers, regional authorities and the scientific community. Activists staged protests calling for the animal’s rescue, while influencers debated the best way to help it.

Some scientists said that further rescue efforts would in themselves cause the ailing and exhausted animal severe stress.

The regional government in Germany's Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania state allowed a private rescue initiative to go ahead with the ambitious effort to pull the whale onto a flooded barge.

The initiative confirmed that the number tracking device found on the dead animal corresponded with the one that had been attached to the whale, German news agency dpa reported. It noted that it wasn't possible to say conclusively what caused the whale's death.

Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania's environment minister, Till Backhaus, said Saturday that the effort had given the whale “a last chance to recover its freedom and health,” but it hadn't been able to take that chance. He said that it will be important to learn “the best possible lessons” from the episode.

Backhaus stressed in a statement that “acquiescing to the rescue attempt doesn't constitute criticism of science” and added: “I think it is absolutely human to use even the smallest chance when a life is at stake.”

Authorities have yet to decide what will be done with the dead whale.

Hansen said "at this time, there are 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.” But she said that it's important to stay away from it, because of the possibility it may carry diseases and other reasons.