A humpback whale that had been stranded for several days off Germany’s Baltic coast was found stuck again, a Greenpeace spokeswoman reported on Saturday. The animal initially ran aground early Monday on a sandbank near the Timmendorfer Strand resort, close to the northern city of Lübeck, attracting wide media attention.
Marine conservation group Sea Shepherd said the whale is likely a young male on migration and may be the same individual repeatedly sighted in the area earlier this month. Multiple attempts to free the 12 to 15-meter (39 to 49-foot) whale failed until Thursday, when rescuers used a floating excavator to carve a channel around the animal. The whale was able to swim away later that night.
Conservationists and marine specialists warned that the animal could get into trouble again after it was seen moving back toward shallow water. Those fears were realized on Saturday, when Greenpeace reported the whale stranded on a sandbank in the Bay of Wismar, roughly 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of Timmendorfer Strand.
Authorities believe this may be the same whale that has been observed in the Baltic Sea in recent weeks, including in the port of Wismar, where it was previously entangled and freed from a fishing net. It remains unclear why the whale keeps becoming stranded; experts who examined it earlier in the week cautioned that it might be ill.
Humpback whales are not typical inhabitants of the Baltic Sea. Specialists say they sometimes follow fish into the region while foraging, and that factors such as underwater noise can interfere with their navigation, increasing the risk of becoming disoriented and stranded.