Timmy the whale survived at most five days after rescue

The humpback whale known as Timmy died at most five days after a major rescue operation, according to Mecklenburg-Vorpommern’s environment minister Till Backhaus, who spoke at a press conference on Friday, as reported by Welt.

The assessment of the death date, estimated as May 6 or 7, is based on data from a tracking device attached to the whale before its release in the Skagerrak on May 2. The whale later washed ashore dead on the Danish island of Anholt about two weeks afterward.

Timmy, initially believed to be male but later confirmed female through necropsy, had repeatedly stranded along the German Baltic coast in March. German authorities failed to rescue the whale, prompting a private group to organize a rescue effort. The operation involved lifting Timmy into a basin on a barge and transporting it through Danish waters for release in the Skagerrak, with hopes it would recover and reach the North Sea.

Environmental groups had warned that the whale was weakened and likely to suffer from the intervention. Backhaus noted on Friday that Timmy struggled with persistent orientation issues, continuing to head toward the Baltic Sea—an unnatural habitat for the species—even after the rescue.

A necropsy conducted in early June on Anholt confirmed Timmy’s sex but has not yet determined the cause of death. The tracking device collected over 90,000 data points, including water depth, temperature, movement patterns, and speed, which will be made available to researchers.