Did "Timmy" die from fishing nets? Decomposing humpback whale was pulled ashore and will be examined next week
The dead humpback whale has been lying off the Danish vacation island of Anholt for weeks - and now smells terrible. Now the animal is being hauled ashore. What happens next?
30.05.2026, 07:41
30.05.2026, 11:56
dpa
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- The humpback whale "Timmy" stranded off Anholt is being pulled ashore and will be examined next week.
- Whale researcher Peter Teglberg Madsen criticizes the earlier rescue attempt. In his opinion, the animal was seriously ill and the action caused unnecessary stress and suffering.
- The autopsy is intended to clarify what caused the whale's death. Experts are looking for traces of fishing nets or plastic, among other things.
Nothing happened for a long time, but now the carcass of the humpback whale known as "Timmy", which was lying off the Danish island of Anholt, has been pulled ashore. In the morning, the livestream of the provider "News5" showed how a vehicle pulled the animal a little further ashore from the shallow water with a rope.
The carcass is to be examined next Thursday. "The autopsy will begin in the afternoon and take about six hours," Morten Abildstrøm from the Danish Nature Agency told the German Press Agency.
"Because the animal has been lying in the sun for so long, it will be very smelly," said whale researcher Peter Teglberg Madsen, who has been accompanying whale post-mortems in Denmark for 25 years. "It will be quite overwhelming if you're not used to it." There is also a risk of infection, which is why as few people as possible are involved in such actions.
The whale carcass has been lying off Anholt for weeks. An attempt to transport it failed.
Image: dpa
Preparations for the work on the whale carcass are underway.
Image: dpa
Attention, risk of infection! The authorities explain in German.
Image: dpa
The whale carcass has been lying off Anholt for weeks. An attempt to transport it failed.
Image: dpa
Preparations for the work on the whale carcass are underway.
Image: dpa
Attention, risk of infection! The authorities explain in German.
Image: dpa
The carcass has been floating in the shallow waters off the vacation island for more than two weeks. The Danes had once tried to pull the whale, bloated with putrefactive gases, into deeper waters in order to bring it to a harbor. The attempt failed and now the animal is to be examined directly on the beach. The main aim is to find out what killed it, said Madsen - "because a lot of the discussion was about whether the whale could be saved or not".
Whale researcher: rescue attempt was "pure cruelty to animals"
The researcher currently assumes that the animal had no chance from the outset. "This was clearly a sick, exhausted animal that could not be saved and should simply have been left alone." Instead, an animal that had never lived in captivity was locked in a metal box and towed across the sea for days. "It was tossed back and forth by the waves, exposed to the noise of the engines and then simply dumped into the sea - that must have been hellishly stressful and frightening for the animal." The action was "pure cruelty to animals".
The whale had repeatedly sought out shallow water areas on the German Baltic coast - it had only moved on several times after people had approached. It finally came to rest off the island of Poel in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Against the recommendation of German experts and institutions, the state environment ministry had tolerated a private initiative to remove the animal and release it into the North Sea.
Many people on the tranquil vacation island of Anholt, with only around 130 inhabitants, are surprised by the procedure - and even more surprised by the great interest in the "German celebrity whale", as some people here call it. "I don't understand why the Germans are making such a fuss about this whale," said Susanna from Denmark to the German Press Agency.
For the locals, the carcass is mainly a source of annoyance, especially as it is located on the island's most popular and accessible beach. "If it stays there and stinks even worse, it will be a problem for our summer guests and the campsite," said Matthias Vanman, who was sitting in the sun at the harbor with his friend Hanne Skov. Skov has been spending the summer on the island's campsite not far from the beach for over 30 years. "The biggest problem is that a carcass like this pollutes everything," she said.
Searching for traces of the whale: Did it die from fishing nets?
The environmental authority warns bathers not to approach the decomposing whale. The risk of infection is too great. When work begins on the animal, the beach is to be cordoned off. Veterinarians, representatives of the authorities and experts will look for remnants of fishing nets and plastic in the animal's intestines and oesophagus, for example.
"In four of the last six stranded humpback whales in Denmark, fishing nets have been proven to have played a role in their deaths," said whale researcher Madsen. In the case of the other two, this was at least a possibility, but it was not possible to say for sure.
"We should be happy that we are seeing more humpback whales in the Baltic Sea again," said the expert from the University of Aarhus. "But instead of spending so many resources on trying to save a single animal, we should make sure that animals don't end up in these situations."
