Threatening to explode Huge sperm whale off Sylt is cut up with a chainsaw
After the recovery of the multi-ton sperm whale off Sylt, the animal is cut up further. Frosty temperatures are not the only problem.
18.02.2025, 10:39
dpa
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- A dead sperm whale has washed ashore on Sylt.
- It threatens to burst.
- It is now being cut up with chainsaws.
The sperm whale found dead on Sylt is being dismembered. "Two more experts are coming with special knives - the aim is to finish today," Wolf Paarmann, spokesman for the Schleswig-Holstein State Agency for Coastal Protection, National Park and Marine Conservation (LKN), told the German Press Agency.
Freezing temperatures had caused the whale to partially freeze. But the tools also caused problems in the morning: "It's not working as it should, I need a tidier chainsaw," Timo Arp, a butcher from Jagel, told dpa. Added to this is the immense size of the animal.
The 14.3-metre-long bull whale was pulled onto the beach near Hörnum harbour by a tractor and caterpillar vehicle on Monday when the water was rising. Experts from a specialist company began dismembering the whale that evening and cut off the lower jaw of the gigantic animal using knives, a chainsaw and an excavator shovel.
Whale pieces are transported in containers
Because the animal can explode and release gases, the police had cordoned off the beach around the carcass from onlookers.
The pieces of the 10 to 15-ton carcass are to be transported in containers to the rendering plant in Jagel near Schleswig. There, experts from the University of Veterinary Medicine Hanover will examine the animal.
A team from the associated Institute for Terrestrial and Aquatic Wildlife Research (ITAW) in Büsum also wants to find out the possible cause of death, among other things.
According to experts, it is still unclear how the marine mammal ended up in the North Sea off Sylt and what caused its death.
