Whale off Poel Removal by barge this week?
Almost a month ago, the humpback whale stranded off the island of Poel near Wismar. This week, ship technology will enable the live animal to be transported away. A barge designed to pick up the large marine mammal and its water reached the Kiel Canal on its way to Wismar Bay from the Elbe late Sunday afternoon. Pushed by the push boat "Hans", the so-called barge arrived in Kiel on Monday night.
27.04.2026, 03:40
27.04.2026, 07:45
SDA
After some further technical preparations on the barge, which are to take place in Wismar, the actual transportation of the whale was last planned for Tuesday at the earliest.
Great hope as the water level rises
Since the start of the private initiative's rescue efforts in mid-April, there have been repeated delays and changes to plans - partly because the whale set itself in motion a week ago after the water level rose, but later got stuck again.
Since then, the team from the private initiative has ensured that the animal lies deeper in the water even at lower water levels and has dredged, vacuumed and flushed a channel down to the deeper navigation channel.
The whale is to be guided into the lowerable barge through the more than 100 meter long channel. The steel tank will then be towed by a tugboat into the North Sea, more than 400 kilometers away.
Politicians in close contact
On Sunday, work was again carried out on the flume and the condition of the whale was checked. Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania's Environment Minister Till Backhaus (SPD) also went into the water and got up close and personal. "Hope dies last," he said on Sunday. "I hope that this mission will come to an end at some point, as soon as possible, and that it will be a success."
According to Backhaus, the bull whale, which is around four to six years old, was first spotted in the Baltic Sea at the beginning of March: On March 3, it surfaced in the port of Wismar; it later became stranded further west off Timmendorfer Strand (Schleswig-Holstein). In the more than 50 days since then, it has been in shallow water zones for well over half of the time. Experts suspect that he may have deliberately visited them again and again because he was seriously ill and seeking rest.
