A humpback whale stranded on Germany's Baltic Sea coast freed itself overnight after days of rescue efforts, biologist Robert Marc Lehmann said on Friday.
The whale had been stuck in shallow waters off Timmendorfer Strand since early on Monday, drawing heavy media attention.
Lehmann said the whale had been able to swim into deeper water through a channel dug out by a floating excavator. The biologist had snorkelled out to the animal the previous day and tried to guide it through the trench.
Lehmann said the crucial thing now was for the 12- to 15-metre marine mammal to remain in open water and, if possible, make its way to the North Sea. It was still not safe, he stressed, saying its release from the sandbank was not yet a rescue, but only a small step in the right direction.
The animal would only be home once it reached the Atlantic, Lehmann added.
LATEST POSTS
- 1
The Land Rover Freelander Is Back—But It’s No Longer a Land Rover - 2ACA subsidies latest: Making sense of what's happening with health care after Republicans revolt, forcing a vote on funding extension
- 3When the moon hits your eye from your Orion ship up high, that's a 'mare'
- 4Instructions to Augment the Presentation of Your Kona SUV
- 5Instructions to Floss Appropriately and Forestall Gum Sickness
- Full Supreme Court to hear challenge to Judicial Selection Committee law
- Earth's newfound 'episodic-squishy lid' may guide our search for habitable worlds
- Israel kidnaps PIJ terrorist in covert op. in Hamas-controlled Gaza in pursuit of Ran Gvili
- When fake data is a good thing – how synthetic data trains AI to solve real problems
- See the first close-up photos of the moon from NASA's Artemis II mission
- Ghassan Al-Duhaini to replace Abu Shabab as Popular Forces leader in Gaza
- How we came to be: Scientists get first look at the evolution of early complex animals
- This Week In Space podcast: Episode 186 — Snow on the Moon?
- In the background: Visiting Notable Film Areas All over the Planet
