A chronicle · Baltic Sea · 2026
In March 2026, a humpback whale surfaced in Wismar Bay — thousands of kilometres from the Atlantic, in a sea that was never his. What followed was a story of nets, headlines and decisions that could not all be right.
Status: 15 May 2026
Confirmed
A dead humpback whale has been found off Anholt.
Likely
Danish authorities and researchers consider it likely that the whale may be Timmy.
Open
Final identification, cause of death, and time of death have not yet been conclusively confirmed.
This chronicle marks uncertainty as uncertainty.
I · What happened?
Twelve dated entries from first public sightings on Germany’s Baltic coast to an open question off Anholt. Each has sources, each has status. We mark what is confirmed — and what is not.
Full chronicle →Reports cite 3 March as the first sighting near Germany’s Baltic coast; some local chronologies place the first documented Wismar station on 4 March. This chronicle therefore marks the start cautiously as 3/4 March.
A team of marine biologists and divers removes remnants of a gillnet that had wrapped around the tail fluke. The whale remains in shallow water.
Tabloid media coin the name "Timmy", a nod to nearby Timmendorfer Strand. A debate begins on whether naming wild animals helps or harms them.
At high tide, the whale moves out of the shallowest areas under his own power. Observers expect a return to the north.
Fig. 01 — Schematic trace: Wismar Bay → North Sea near Skagen; Anholt open.
Geography
The schematic deliberately avoids drama. It shows only what is publicly documented: first sighting, transport, release — and an open point off Anholt.
Distance Wismar→Skagen
≈ 380 km
Days in the bay
~ 55
II · Who is Timmy?
Before we talk about the fate of a single whale, it helps to describe the being — not as the media shaped him, but as biology knows him.
Read the profile →III · What Timmy reveals
One whale is not a statistic. But he is a reason to read five numbers usually left to specialists.
See all data →Distance from habitat
~1 200
kilometres
is roughly how far Timmy was from the typical spring habitat of his population.
What pulls a whale into the wrong sea?
Ghost nets
~640 000
tonnes per year
of lost or abandoned fishing gear enter the world's oceans every year.
What happens to a net that no one hauls in?
Salinity
7–10
PSU (vs. Atlantic 35)
is the salinity of the western Baltic — low for a marine mammal from the Atlantic.
Why does a humpback whale tolerate the Baltic poorly?
IV · Perspectives
We summarize traceable perspectives and mark them explicitly as summaries, not interviews.
Read perspectives →Scientific perspective
Many experts warned that further intervention could add stress to an already weakened animal. For them, the central question was not whether action looked dramatic, but whether it truly served the animal’s welfare.
Summary, not a direct quote
Fisheries perspective
Lost gillnets are not a side detail in this story. They keep working in the water, endanger marine mammals, and turn a single case into a question of recovery, oversight, and responsibility.
Summary, not a direct quote
V · What remains
The feed moves on.
The sea does not.
This site does not try to end Timmy's story. It tries to make it legible — and to leave open a question we cannot answer: what do we owe a sea in which a whale can lose his way?
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