At around midday on Tuesday afternoon, passers-by discover a fin whale in the Wismar harbour basin. The animal had become entangled in a gillnet and was dragging a net about a hundred metres long behind it. Experts from the German Oceanographic Museum in Stralsund identify the marine mammal as a fin whale with an estimated length of ten to twelve metres. Around 50 onlookers watch the natural spectacle in the afternoon. The fire brigade is deployed with one boat and the water police with two boats. Sea Shepherd is on site with a ship, on which staff from the German Oceanographic Museum are also present. At around 6 p.m., the animal leaves the harbour and heads back towards the open Baltic Sea. Such sightings of large whales in the Baltic Sea remain rare. Marco Trunk, spokesman for the city of Wismar, explains that there are harbour porpoises from time to time, but not such large whales.
Difficult approach
Approaching the whale proves difficult. Sea Shepherd tries to approach with a diver. "The animal is very, very stressed," explains 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, the hundred-metre-long gillnet was successfully removed. However, a line is wrapped around the whale's body, which cannot be removed until the very end. The rescuers initially give the animal a rest to reduce the stress. A diver finally manages to show the fin whale the way out of the harbour basin. Eyewitnesses report that the animal initially returns to the harbour area again and again before finally swimming towards the open Baltic Sea.
Danger from gillnets
It is very common for harbour porpoises to get entangled in gillnets in the Baltic Sea, says the Sea Shepherd spokesperson. These bottlenose dolphins grow up to 1.80 metres long. "Now a large whale has been caught," he emphasises. This is a first in the Baltic Sea. The rescuers express concern about the remaining line on the animal's body. "Of course, we hope that we will be able to free the animal - completely," says the spokesperson. 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. Fin whales can grow to more than 25 metres in length and are one of the largest whale species in the world.
Unusual sightings
Such observations are unusual in Wismar. Marco Trunk cannot say how long the animal has been in the harbour. 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 Rügenlater off the coast of Hiddensee. Also off Travemünde a humpback whale was sighted. It is not clear whether these cases and the current one are the same animal. The increasing number of sightings of large whales in the Baltic Sea raises questions. Experts suspect that the animals get lost in search of food or are lured into the shallow waters by environmental changes.
Lars Bolle
Chief Editor Digital
