A fin whale caused a stir in Wismar harbour on Tuesday afternoon. Passers-by discovered the animal around midday in the harbour basin, where it had become entangled in a gillnet. Experts from the German Oceanographic Museum in Stralsund identified the marine mammal as a fin whale with an estimated length of ten to twelve metres. Around 50 onlookers watched the natural spectacle in the afternoon. The fire brigade was deployed with one boat and the water police with two boats. Sea Shepherd was on site with a ship, on which staff from the German Oceanographic Museum were also present. The whale dragged a gillnet about a hundred metres long behind it. The animal left the harbour again at around 6 pm.
Complex rescue operation
Approaching the whale proved difficult. Sea Shepherd tried to approach with a diver. "The animal is very, very stressed," explained a spokesperson for the marine conservation organisation. The reason for the stress was the net and the approach attempts. In cooperation with the fire brigade, it was possible to remove the hundred-metre-long gillnet. However, a line was wrapped around the whale's body and could not be removed until the end. The rescuers initially gave the animal a rest to reduce the stress. A diver finally managed to show the fin whale the way out of the harbour basin. Eyewitnesses reported that the animal kept returning to the harbour area before finally swimming towards the open Baltic Sea.
Danger from gillnets
It is very common for harbour porpoises to become entangled in gillnets in the Baltic Sea, said the Sea Shepherd spokesperson. These bottlenose dolphins grow up to 1.80 metres long. "Now a large whale has been caught," he emphasised. This is a first in the Baltic Sea. The rescuers expressed concern about the remaining line on the animal's body. "We hope, of course, that we will be able to free the animal - completely," said the spokesman. It must be assumed that the animal will continue to grow. "A line like this will simply cut further and further into it." A later approach may still be possible if the animal is sighted again.
Rare sightings in the Baltic Sea
Such observations are unusual in Wismar. There are always harbour porpoises, but not such large whales, explained Marco Trunk, spokesman for the city of Wismar. He was unable to say how long the animal had been in the harbour. Fin whales can grow to more than 25 metres in length and are one of the largest whale species in the world. It was only at the beginning of the year that a Fin whale in the Flensburg Fjord has been spotted in the western Baltic Sea. It attracted curious onlookers to the footpaths, piers and promenades in and around Flensburg. Last summer, a humpback whale first caused off Rügen, later in front of Hidensee for attention. Even before Travemünde a humpback whale was sighted. It is not clear whether these cases and the current one are the same animal.
Lars Bolle
Chief Editor Digital
