They had concluded the chance of survival was very low. However, the German state’s environment minister Till Backhaus said a reassessment had found a less intrusive approach.<\/p>\n
The air cushions – not unlike inflatable arm bands – will pull the ailing whale back to the surface, where it can be dragged around Denmark’s coastline and into the North Sea – and possibly further on to the Atlantic.<\/p>\n
The injured whale is still showing signs of life but is severely weakened, the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania said.<\/p>\n
“The prognosis remains critical. But a chance of survival cannot be completely ruled out,” Backhaus said. <\/p>\n
“Against this background, it is justifiable to allow this attempt, and I thank the initiative for it.”<\/p>\n
Authorities previously conceded that they should let the “majestic animal go in peace”. <\/p>\n
The whale’s plight has attracted international headlines and warnings from the state government about “wild conspiracy theories and misinformation” spreading online.<\/p>\n
An exclusion zone has also been established around the whale. <\/p>\n
A 67-year-old woman jumped off a boat over the weekend to get close to the whale before she was stopped, the Associated Press reported.<\/p>\n
“The outpouring of sympathy shows how deeply the animal’s fate moves people,” Backhaus said. “At the same time, I ask that you respect the work of the emergency services and adhere to the existing protective measures.”<\/p>\n
The whale is thought to have become entangled in netting before eventually becoming stranded on a sandbank, while suffering from a skin condition brought on by the lower salt levels of the Baltic Sea.<\/p>\n
Rescuers used excavators to dig a channel, allowing the whale to swim free – but attempts to guide it to the North Sea proved unsuccessful as it veered towards shallower waters.<\/p>\n
Greenpeace Germany, which has been involved in previous rescue efforts, said it did not support this latest attempt, citing the whale’s poor health. <\/p>\n
Wildlife experts from the German Oceanographic Museum and the Institute for Terrestrial and Aquatic Wildlife Research said the whale was severely injured with visible skin detachments.<\/p>\n
It is assumed to have considerable internal injuries “likely caused by the pressure of its own body weight on its organs over several days”.<\/p>\n
They also said its injuries indicated it had contact with a ship propeller and a fishing net.<\/p>\n
It is unclear how the whale found its way into the Baltic Sea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"They had concluded the chance of survival was very low. However, the German state’s environment minister Till Backhaus…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534698,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-534697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}