Even before the successful release: The helpers sprayed the whale with fresh water. Now the animal has to make it from the Baltic Sea to the open sea.Image: keystone
After being freed from a sandbank, the humpback whale disappeared into the Baltic Sea. Now he seems to be stuck again.
Mar 28, 2026, 9:31 a.mMarch 28, 2026, 3:45 p.m
Since the observation of the humpback whale, which was freed from a sandbank off Timmendorfer Strand, was canceled on Friday, the police have been investigating a new tip that the whale was said to have been spotted in the Wismar Bay.
The whale is now stuck again. A Greenpeace spokeswoman confirmed to the German Press Agency that the marine mammal is now stuck on a sandbank in the Bay of Wismar.
“After he was able to free himself from his predicament, the whale was spotted again this afternoon in Wismar Bay near the island of Walfisch,” confirmed a spokesman for the Schwerin Ministry of the Environment.
“He’s breathing,” said Greenpeace spokeswoman Daniela von Schaper “Picture”. It is now being clarified whether the animal suffered injuries.
In addition to the water police from Wismar and Rostock, employees from the German Oceanographic Museum, the Institute for Terrestrial and Aquatic Wildlife Research and the nature conservation organization Greenpeace were deployed on the water and on land to assess the situation and help in an emergency.
The water police had been driving along the coast since early morning looking for the whale. Another police boat and Greenpeace were also involved in the search on Saturday with two boats, said a spokeswoman for the dpa.
Wismar Bay is located east of Boltenhagen, where the marine mammal was last seen late on Friday afternoon.
Whale saves itself from sandbank off Timmendorfer Strand
After days of efforts by numerous helpers, the animal swam free from a sandbank off Timmendorfer Strand through a channel dug out by an excavator on Friday night. But experts are still worried about the marine mammal after it recently swam near the coast.
Whale has to find its way out of the Baltic Sea into the open sea
Even if the animal is able to free itself again, it is still far from safe: in order for the humpback whale to be truly saved, it still has to find its way into the open sea. To do this, he still has to cover more than 1,000 kilometers.
The whale has to find its way between the Danish islands through either the Little or Great Belt or swim through the Öresund between Zealand and mainland Sweden to leave the Baltic Sea.
Sources used:
- Material from the dpa news agency
(hkl/sda/dpa)