March 30, 2026, 1:19 p.mMarch 30, 2026, 1:35 p.m
What’s new?
The humpback whale lying in the bay off Wismar has hardly moved in the past few hours. He’s not feeling well. He is currently being watched by many onlookers on the beach and on the pier. Seagulls occasionally perch on his body and peck at his back. In addition, the water level has recently fallen slightly.
The whale in the Baltic Sea is not doing well.Image: keystone
What exactly do you know about your health status?
He breathes about every five minutes and you can see a small cloud of water over his body. This breathing rate is OK so far, said marine protection expert Franziska Saalmann from Greenpeace to the German Press Agency. “At the moment there doesn’t seem to be anything worrying about it. But yeah, that’s something we’re keeping an eye on as well.”
When the expert team with the water police went near the animal in a rubber boat in the morning, the 12 to 15 meter long whale did not react strongly. “We also tried to animate him with noise. To do this, we hit the water with the paddle to see if it moved and thereby showed “Oh, that bothers me!” But there was no reaction and that shows that the animal is still weakened.”
Video: watson/nina bürge
What is the water level currently?
On Sunday afternoon, the water level in the Baltic Sea in the Bay of Wismar was still so high (13 centimeters above sea level) that the humpback whale could have freed itself. On Monday night, the water level fell by almost 50 centimeters, according to data from the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH). That’s why it’s currently less likely that the whale will be able to swim free, said Greenpeace expert Saalmann.
“The water level should rise again. In the meantime, he can regain his strength through the rest that we want to give him.” According to BSH information, the water in the Wismar Bay will rise to around 20 to 30 centimeters above sea level early on Tuesday morning.
An attempt was made to escort the whale out of the Baltic Sea with boats.Image: www.imago-images.de
How do you try to help the whale?
The animal is now being monitored continuously. At night the police were responsible for security. “A shift system has been set up to ensure that the whale is not unobserved,” said a spokesman for the water police. She is now traveling in the bay with a coastal patrol boat so that no one comes close to the whale. At the weekend, the authorities had drawn up a restricted area within a 500-meter radius around the whale, into which no ship or boat was allowed to enter.
In the afternoon it is also planned to encourage the whale to swim away again. The water level is expected to rise again by around 30 centimeters over the course of the afternoon, as the German Maritime Museum announced. The team of experts on site would then try to animate the whale again. “This is done by slapping the water with the paddle, as the whale should under no circumstances be touched,” said a spokeswoman for the German Oceanographic Museum.
What are his chances of survival?
This is difficult to estimate at the moment. Even if it were freed on its own, it is not clear whether the whale would even find its way back to the North Sea. Saalmann said this in the ZDF morning magazine “Moma”:
“We don’t know exactly what illnesses he might have. And whether and to what extent his orientation and his general condition have been weakened to such an extent that he is now also so weakened by human influences and the remaining web residue that he still has in his mouth that he simply cannot get along properly and gets lost again.
The whale actually urgently needs to leave the Baltic Sea.
The team of experts does not want to give up hope of surviving and swimming freely, as Saalmann continued. “The chances of survival are not getting any better. It’s a difficult situation for him. He lives weakened and in a habitat that is not designed for him. The team will continue to support the whale – depending on the situation, either by leaving it alone or by encouraging it to swim freely. “We just hope for the best.”
How long has the whale been traveling in the Baltic Sea?
According to the information, the whale had repeatedly appeared on the Baltic Sea coast since the beginning of March, first in the harbor of Wismar, later in the Bay of Lübeck and on the coast near Steinbeck (Northwest Mecklenburg district). The animal had repeatedly gotten caught in nets. Emergency services and marine conservationists from the Sea Shepherd organization had freed it of some of the material.
Last Monday morning, the marine mammal was discovered on a sandbank off Timmendorfer Strand near Lübeck. An extensive rescue operation began, and on Friday night the humpback whale freed itself through a channel dug out by an excavator. On Saturday, however, the whale was stranded again – in the Wismar Bay.
The drama surrounding the humpback whale has continued ever since. On Sunday night, when the water level rose, the marine mammal was initially able to swim free from a sandbank in front of the small island of Walfisch in the Wismar Bay. But a little later he appeared again – very close, at a place about two meters deep. He has been lying there ever since. (dab/sda/dpa)