Environment Ministry criticizesWhere's Timmy? Bad attack against rescuers after transmitter breakdown

May 2, 2026 around 2:45 p.m Clock

The humpback whale, which has been stranded several times on the Baltic coast, is back in the open sea, but the announced transmitter data on its path is still missing. Eva Klaußner-Ziebarth, spokeswoman for the Ministry of the Environment, said the bearing data had been requested several times by the initiative but was still not available.

Environment Minister Till Backhaus also addressed this in a statement on the livestream provider News5: “What really annoys me is explicit: It was agreed that the data would be sent to us so that we can also accompany him. (…) To date, no data has been made available to us.” Incidentally, it was also agreed that a video system would be installed on the barge so that appointed veterinarians could continue to observe the whale – “that did not happen either”.

For the time being, no information can be given about the whale's swimming direction, said the lawyer for the private initiative to transport the whale, Constanze von der Meden. It is unclear what specific problems there were. According to the funder of the rescue operation, Karin Walter-Mommert, the tracker attached to the whale is currently not sending a signal, as she told the “Bild” newspaper. “We are now waiting for the tracker to start, but for that to happen it has to be completely in the water for ten seconds at a time and the network is bad,” says Walter-Mommert.

The day before, the initiative stated that a transmitter had been installed. The information could not be verified by independent sources. The general public would not be able to follow the whale's path anyway: the information about where the whale was would only be made available to the team members of the private initiative and the Environment Ministry of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, von der Meden had said.

“If it turns out that the tracking device does not provide any data, that would be a catastrophe, even for the 'rescue team',” said whale researcher and marine biologist Fabian Ritter. “There have been enough reasons to doubt the professionalism of the team, this would be the most serious.” If it is not possible to track the whale using data from the transmitter and to assess its behavior, the entire mission cannot ultimately be described as successful or failed.

In the hours after its release, there was no information as to what condition the animal was in and how exactly it swam or was maneuvered off board. In the area of ​​​​the transition from the East to the North Sea there were strong waves at times during the transport, and the whale rocked back and forth in the barge. Although the barrier net was ultimately removed on Friday afternoon, the animal remained in the barge.

According to the initiative's team, the whale was no longer in the barge around 9 a.m. on Saturday morning. The convoy was about 70 kilometers from Skagen in the Skagerrak. In drone images from News5, a whale could be seen swimming in the water at times – it was not possible to say with certainty whether it was actually the animal that was released.

The humpback whale was released in one of Europe's busiest shipping routes, said Thilo Maack from the nature conservation organization Greenpeace. “We can understand the desire to help the animal, but we consider its chances of survival to be minimal.” Only with tracking data and thus the whale's current location could it be made clear whether the whale's suffering on this journey was worth it.

The four to six year old bull whale was first seen in the Baltic Sea at the beginning of March. In the approximately 60 days leading up to the transport, it was in shallow water areas for around two thirds of the time, most recently off the island of Poel. On Tuesday he was maneuvered into a barge, which was then coupled to a tugboat and set off towards the North Sea.

Sources used: kst/dpa