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When a 10-metre long humpback whale became stranded on a sandbar in the Baltic Sea last month, none of those who went to its rescue could have known how it might turn lives and livelihoods upside down.
About a month after the first sighting of the male whale, near Wismar and Timmendorfer Strand on the north German coast, it has repeatedly stranded and freed itself and is now stranded once more, with rescuers saying it is in the throes of death.
The drama has captivated the country, making politicians cry and drawing shamans from distant parts. Experts brought in first to help save the whale, and then to ease the animal’s demise, have faced death threats. Those accusing politicians and environmentalists of worsening the whale’s plight, even animal cruelty, have said it is an argument for bringing the far right into power.
The local mayor has admitted: “We have all been totally out of our depth.”
One leading humpback whale expert has even stopped allowing her name to be quoted in the media, because, she has said, “it has become dangerous to talk about humpback whales in Germany”.
Now the whale is lying in the Kirchsee, a small bay on the island of Poel, and the local fire brigade is in constant deployment, spraying it with sea water in an attempt to comfort it in its final days.
In a cover story entitled “A Whale Dies, A Country Watches – and Hatred Springs out of Nowhere”, the news magazine Spiegel compared the spectacle to a “failed theatre production”, starring “offended animal rights protectors, angry police, helpless authorities and a whale which doesn’t follow stage instructions”.
Attempts to save the whale were declared at an end at an emotional press conference held by the environment minister of the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Till Backhaus, rescue workers and scientists from the maritime museum in nearby Stralsund almost two weeks ago. The whale, it was said by the experts, was beyond saving. The participants pleaded with the public to leave the animal in peace to die.
A key reason for its fast decline was thought to be a fishing net that had got caught in its jaw, weakening it, and leading it to lose its sense of direction. The whale should never have been in the Baltic Sea, which has far too little salt, and is not deep enough for it to survive. It is thought it might have been lured in by shoals of herring.
Wounds have been detected on its back, in addition to another infection on its skin. “The patient is very sick,” Backhaus said.
It has been nicknamed Timmy by some locals, although experts refuse to use the moniker, saying attempts to anthropomorphise the whale are part of the problem at the heart of the operation. Nature should be allowed to take its course, they say.
But the closing press conference turned out to be anything but. Backhaus, who did not hold back his emotions, calling the operation one of the most demanding of his 27 years in office, said recommendations from the public as to how the whale might yet be saved had been taken into account – including putting a sheet underneath the animal and lifting it up via helicopter, or his own short-lived idea, to hire a giant catamaran from Denmark to fetch it – but were not deemed workable.
Still they have kept coming.
People describing themselves as everything from well-wishers to environmental campaigners have taken to the water to get close to the animal and look to find ways of persuading it back into deep waters. It has become the focus of Instagram stories and liveblogs across German media.
At the weekend, a woman in her late 50s from Bavaria was fished out by visibly angry water police having got within 3 metres of the whale.
Cranes, planes, inflatable pontoons and whale song are among the suggestions which have been put forward. An inventor from Austria has even suggested building a swimming pool around the whale. A self-confessed whale ambassador has composed a song of ritual healing called HeJaWa, claiming it would give energy to the whale and help to free it.
A German millionaire has said he is prepared to put up as much money as is needed, arguing that “if it’s possible to fly to the moon, it must be possible to save a whale”.
Latest suggestions have included administering a lethal injection, but this would have to be inserted directly into the heart and this is thought to be extremely difficult if not impossible to carry out. Attaching explosive devices to the whale’s head, methods apparently experimented on in Australia, and considered an option by the International Whaling Commission in emergency situations, have also been proposed.
But German authorities have reportedly long since ruled this out as an option, not least due to the risks it would not work, as well as the risks to local infrastructure.
Backhaus has said authorities will accompany the whale “to the last”. He had hoped, he said, for an Easter miracle for the whale, which occasionally spurts fountains of water and emits what are interpreted as a plaintive cries, “but a resurrection is not in sight”.
