{"id":8142,"date":"2026-04-28T11:37:06","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T11:37:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/8142\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T11:37:06","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T11:37:06","slug":"fresh-rescue-attempt-for-humpback-whale-stranded-off-german-coast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/8142\/","title":{"rendered":"Fresh rescue attempt for humpback whale stranded off German coast"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Rescuers are on Tuesday set to attempt an audacious operation to free a humpback whale that has been stranded off Germany&#8217;s Baltic Sea coast for weeks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The fate of the 12-metre-long animal, nicknamed &#8220;Timmy&#8221; by German media, has captivated the nation since it first became stuck in early March. It has been lying in a shallow bay off the island of Poel for four weeks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">After authorities failed with several rescue attempts, a private initiative backed by millionaires has stepped in to organize a fresh effort to free the whale, despite concerns from environmental organizations and marine wildlife experts that it could cause the animal more pain.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The latest plan envisions using straps to guide the whale, which weighs around 12 tons, through a dredged channel to a transport barge that could tow it towards the North Sea.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Till Backhaus, the environment minister of the north-eastern German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, said the regional government has given the green light for the operations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The private initiative&#8217;s vets have confirmed that the whale is in sufficient health to be transported, Backhaus added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The humpback whale, said to be around 4 to 6 years old, has run aground in shallow water in the Baltic Sea five times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rescuers are on Tuesday set to attempt an audacious operation to free a humpback whale that has been&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8143,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[15,8074,5,104,6704,2635,109,8075],"class_list":["post-8142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-germany","tag-baltic-sea","tag-german-coast","tag-germany","tag-humpback-whale","tag-private-initiative","tag-rescue-attempts","tag-shallow-water","tag-the-stranded-whale"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}