BERLIN — Rescuers said Wednesday that they have given up hope for the humpback whale that has become stranded repeatedly off Germany’s Baltic Sea coast and now expect it to die in the inlet where it currently lies.
The whale swam into an inlet on the small island of Poel, near the port of Wismar, on Tuesday and got stuck again. Last week, it was rescued from even shallower water at Timmendorfer Strand, a resort town over 30 miles from its current location, with the help of an excavator, but it soon ran into trouble again.
In recent days, authorities have pursued a strategy of trying to give the exhausted mammal peace and quiet so that it can gather enough strength to swim away under its own steam, while sometimes approaching it with boats to motivate it to set off.
Burkard Baschek, the scientific director of the Ocean Museum Germany and the scientific coordinator of the rescue effort, said the whale was breathing at very irregular intervals Wednesday and that drone photos showed little sign of activity in the sediment under the 39-49 foot animal. It barely reacted when approached.
