Danes try to tow dead whale from island beach after failed German rescue

Danish environment officials have begun an operation to move the carcass of a humpback whale from an island beach across the sea to mainland Denmark.

The dead whale was discovered on the shores of Anholt island last weekend, two weeks after a private mission to save the humpback from being stranded on Germany's Baltic Sea coast ended in failure.

Denmark's environmental protection agency said the carcass, not far from the beach, was causing significant disruption, and decided it should be transported by sea to the port of Grenaa, about 57km (35 miles) to the south-west.

Islanders had earlier been urged to keep away from the whale because of the risk of infection.

One woman on Anholt said before the operation to move it had begun: "It's around 20-30m (65-100ft) from the beach but it's drifting along the beach."

The whale has gained in size in recent days because of a build-up of gas as the carcass decomposes, and there is widespread concern it might explode.

"That's nature. I know some people are worried, but I'm not," the islander told the BBC.

Early on Thursday, an emergency response team arrived off the coast of Anholt to begin the operation to move the whale, first by towing the carcass into deeper water and then transporting it with a larger boat to Grenaa.

However, Jane Hansen from the environmental protection agency said that the operation had not been a success: "After several attempts, the whale has now become stranded on a sandbank some distance from the shore."

"The operation has therefore been temporarily paused while the emergency response team explores alternative options for transporting the whale," she added.

The agency said it still aimed to take the whale to the harbour at Grenaa for a post-mortem examination as well as to allow researchers to collect "valuable scientific samples".

However, the next attempt is unlikely to take place before the end of Denmark's long public holiday weekend.

Exactly how the whale ended up on an island off Denmark's East Jutland coast in the Kattegat strait is a mystery. The barge that carried the mammal away from Germany released it into the sea about 70km (45 miles) from the northern tip of Denmark.

The saga has transfixed Germans since early March, and has left islanders on Anholt bemused by the continued interest in the story.

Some German tourists have appeared on the island in recent days to follow developments about the whale that some media outlets labelled "Timmy" - named after the sandbank it first became stranded on at Timmendorfer Beach. Others had nicknamed the whale "Hope".

Two private entrepreneurs had hoped to save the whale, but German experts always warned that it was very weak and at risk of drowning. Even in early April, authorities said they had given up hope of the animal surviving.

It was stranded in Lübeck Bay after apparently becoming entangled in netting. After an initial bid to rescue it there, it swam further east along the Baltic Sea coast and ended up off the island of Poel until it was ushered into a barge in late April and ferried out towards the North Sea.

Initially there was some doubt as to whether the whale found on Anholt was the one that had been released into the sea, but officials said they had found a GPS tracker on the humpback that had been put in place during the rescue bid.