Danish divers and authorities have confirmed that a dead humpback whale found off Denmark is the same animal nicknamed ‘Timmy’ after spending more than a month stranded on Germany’s Baltic coast. Denmark’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the identification after divers located and retrieved a tracking device still attached to the whale and photographed its dorsal fin, allowing officials to match it to the animal handled in German waters.
An initial inspection had failed to spot the tracker because of the carcass’s position, but better conditions on Saturday enabled a local Nature Agency employee to secure the device. Jane Hansen, division head at the Danish EPA, said the location and appearance of the device confirmed the whale’s identity. Danish authorities said there are currently no plans to remove the carcass.
The 12-meter whale became stranded on a sandbank off Germany’s Baltic coast on March 23. After repeated attempts by authorities to free it in Wismar Bay — including digging channels and trying to guide it back to deeper water — officials said they would stop active rescue efforts. Two private entrepreneurs, Karin Walter-Mommert and Walter Gunz, then financed a rescue operation that transferred the whale into a water-filled barge and towed it to the North Sea, where it was released on May 2.
Animal protection groups and some marine experts had warned the whale’s long-term survival prospects were slim and criticized the private rescue as unlikely to succeed and potentially stressful for the already weakened animal. A dead whale was later sighted off Denmark’s Anholt island on May 14.
The case attracted intense media and public attention in Germany for weeks. Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania’s environment minister, Till Backhaus, thanked Danish authorities for their help in confirming the identification and defended his decision to permit the private rescue attempt. He said he considered it humane to try even a slim chance of saving a life and acknowledged the sadness that the whale did not survive.
Denmark’s EPA urged the public to keep a safe distance from the carcass and not to approach it. They warned the whale could carry diseases transmissible to humans and noted the danger of explosion as decomposition produces large volumes of gas.
The identification closes a high-profile chapter in a dramatic rescue effort that divided experts and captured widespread public interest, while underscoring the risks and complexities involved in attempting to save large marine mammals in poor health.