Final preparations are reportedly under way for a millionaire-funded plan to tow a sickly humpback whale into the North Sea.
The 12-tonne whale, nicknamed Timmy, has been stranded on the Baltic Sea coastline for almost a month. A barge resembling a giant steel aquarium will attempt to transport Timmy 400km (248 miles) towards the North Sea, and then hopefully back to the Atlantic Ocean from where it is believed to have arrived.
The mission known as Operation Cushion, is scheduled to start on Tuesday. Rescue workers said the animal was positioned in the right direction in the water on Sunday.
“[It] is interesting, it turned 90 degrees – and in the right direction. It seems to be preparing itself mentally and emotionally for departure,” the state’s environment minister, Till Backhaus, told Bild.
The newspaper, along with local media outlets, has been running a live blog on the whale’s progress as well as a live stream from where it has been lying in shallow waters for several weeks.
First spotted in the Baltic Sea last month, after it had possibly been chasing shoals of herring, it has now been lying in the mud off the island of Poel in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern for more than three weeks. The water contains far too little salt to sustain it.
After experts, including leading marine biologists, said the whale was dying and a rescue operation was only going to stress the animal and would certainly not help it, a private initiative was launched, funded by two prominent millionaires, leaving local politicians in the shade.
The initiative plans to lift the 10-metre-long whale with air cushions, stretching a net beneath it to suspend it in a pontoon structure. The pontoon would then be towed into deeper waters by a tugboat.
The whale’s plight has attracted hundreds of onlookers, including tourists from across Europe, who have travelled to Poel to watch the spectacle. Many are camping nearby in cars or caravans. Several people describing themselves as supporters have swum through the cold sea to within metres of the whale, in order to be close to it, before being hoisted out by water police.
The rescue effort has involved the local fire brigade spraying the whale with water to keep it hydrated, and latterly, individuals who repeatedly pour buckets of water over its back. Hundreds of kilograms of zinc ointment have been reportedly applied to its back, using cloths to help treat the wounds on its blistered skin.
Critics however, say the team that has effectively tasked itself with the latest rescue operation has little experience and accuse it of trying to politically manipulate the situation.
Burkard Baschek, the director of the Oceanographic Museum in Stralsund, who was until recently the state government’s chief adviser on the whale until the decision was made that it should be left to die in peace, said he believes the rescue effort will be in vain. “A rescue attempt … is no longer worthwhile,” he told Die Zeit. “This has also been confirmed to us repeatedly by international colleagues.”
Baschek said a report compiled by his colleagues still stood. It states that the whale’s lethargic behaviour clearly indicates serious health problems. A fishing net caught in its mouth is thought to be still there and impossible to remove. Its skin is covered in blister-like blemishes. If whales have been repeatedly stranded, as this one had been, Baschek said, the prognosis was “very poor”. Continuing to try to save it was wrong, he said, calling it “pure animal cruelty”.
Backhaus, the environment minister, who says the whale has grown close to his heart, having previously said there was no hope for it, said he backs the new initiative’s attempts to try to save it.
He denies claims he is supporting the initiative because the state faces what is expected to be a hotly contested election between his Social Democrats and the far-right AfD party in September and images of a dead whale in the bay could go down very badly for his party.
Backhaus has been placed under extra police protection after receiving threats from members of the public who accused him and his team of giving up on the whale too soon. He told Die Zeit: “I won’t be blackmailed.”
The same critics accused the museum’s scientists of wanting the whale dead so that it could secure its skeleton for its museum and “make millions”. The museum denies this.
Baschek called in the police after receiving threats, including social media posts saying: “May the seagulls peck you to pieces” and “may you suffer just like the whale”.
During an investigation into the team behind the latest attempts to rescue the whale, Die Zeit said it had uncovered a group of people representing far-right interests, esoteric methodology and conspiracy theories as well as holding links to the Querdenker anti-coronavirus lockdown movement.
The group has claimed that together they can create an aura that reaches the whale and help to save it. They have flown in from as far afield as Peru and Hawaii to support the effort. A vet joining from Hawaii wrote on Instagram, before landing in Germany: “a big big fat F@CK YOU” to the scientists involved in the original efforts.
“It’s as if the conspiracy theorists of the coronavirus pandemic have now taken over the role of the public health department in the [efforts to save the whale] in the Bay of Poel,” Die Zeit wrote.
Financing the group are two extremely wealthy individuals: Karin Walter-Mommert, an equestrian expert, and Walter Gunz, a former co-founder of a German electronics retailer chain. The pair have expressed the desire to save the whale whatever the cost.
Backhaus said the two had also assumed full legal responsibility for the rescue operation. “They have also made it clear that they claim extensive freedom of decision-making in this matter,” he said.
