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After being rescued from a Baltic Sea bay off the island of Poel and transported for several days, the rescued humpback whale has been released into the North Sea. At around 9.00 a.m., the animal was no longer in the barge, Jens Schwarck from the private rescue initiative told the news agency dpa.
According to initial information from Bild, the captain of the tugboat is said to have ordered the release of the whale. However, the animal was apparently not released into the open sea at the location originally intended by the rescue initiative, but around 70 kilometres north of Skagen in Denmark.
It is unclear whether the whale has a transmitter to track its fate
According to Schwarck, it was initially unclear whether the whale had been fitted with a transmitter. There was also no information on its condition or how exactly the animal left the ship.
The transport of the whale had come to a standstill on Friday. With wind forces of up to 6, waves of up to 1.5 metres built up in the transition between the North and Baltic Seas, too high for the barge containing the whale. As a result, the tug initially turned away and headed south.
In the evening, things started to move: at around 19:20, the humpback whale had purposefully approached the exit of the barge.