ruth901
Danish expert on dead humpback whale“I never said it was Timmy”
A dead whale lies off the Danish island of Anholt
picture alliance/dpa / Jonas Walzberg
The guesswork surrounding the dead humpback whale continues!
The carcass of a marine mammal appears off the Danish island of Anholt. The immediate conclusion is that it is Timmy, who died shortly after his supposed rescue from the Baltic Sea. But is that really true? RTL asks the expert who examined the dead animal.
Is the dead humpback whale really Timmy?
Morten Abildstrøm from the Danish Nature Conservation Authority has already collected the first samples of the whale. On Saturday afternoon (May 16th) he wants to look at the carcass again, together with a German veterinarian. “We leave at 12 p.m.,” he confirmed to RTL in a phone call. Will the identity of the marine mammal be clarified?
Reading tip: No GPS transmitter on the dead whale off Anholt Island: Veterinarian still has hope
Because so far only speculations are circulating. “I have no idea whether it's Timmy or not,” explains Abildstrøm. He “never said” that it was the Baltic Sea darling that had been stranded for weeks. “But a humpback whale in Danish waters is very rare. So maybe it's the whale from Germany or maybe it's another one.”
In the video: Dead humpback whale discovered off the Danish coast – authorities assume it's Timmy
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Tail fin is supposed to solve the mystery of the dead whale
Matching the pattern on the tail fin could help identify the whale. Each whale has an individual pattern on its fluke – like a fingerprint. However, the animal's tail fin is underwater and therefore cannot be clearly seen. Journalists photographed the fluke from different angles in the evening using a drone. A severed piece of the fin is to be examined in Germany.
Reading tip: Whale off the Danish coast: It's probably Timmy!
Timmy was shipped to freedom in a travel cot.
Stefan Sauer/dpa
The marine mammal has probably been dead for some time, the Danish news agency Ritzau reported, citing the environmental authority Miljøstyrelsen. The whale Timmy, which had stranded several times on the coast of Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, was brought into the open sea with the help of a barge and released in the Skagerrak on May 2nd about 70 kilometers from Skagen. Experts criticized the action and rated the injured and weakened animal's chance of survival as very low.
Sources used: own RTL research, dpa
