Timmy the whale, who was repeatedly stranded in the Baltic Sea in recent months, was dragged on to a Danish beach on Saturday after two weeks stuck in shallow waters.
The humpback whale was released on May 2 in a £1.3million rescue mission after his health severely worsened while being stranded near Germany during March and April.
Timmy had been carried on a barge towards the North Sea in a final effort to guide it back to its natural habitat in the Atlantic.
But days after Timmy entered the North Sea off Denmark the German Oceanographic Museum said he did not survive the transition to deep water.
Timmy was found dead on May 14 after tracking data was lost, stranded off the small island of Anholt in the strait between Denmark and Sweden.
Earlier this week Jane Hansen, head of division at the Danish Environmental Protection Agency, said: ‘It can now be confirmed that the stranded humpback whale near Anholt is the same whale that was previously stranded in Germany and was the subject of rescue attempts.’
She added that conditions on Saturday made it possible for a Danish Nature Agency employee to locate and retrieve a tracking device that was still fastened to the whale’s back, and ‘the position and appearance of the device confirm that this is the same whale that had previously been observed and handled in German waters’.
The finding brought an end to weeks of efforts to help Timmy back to the Atlantic.
Timmy’s body was dragged to shore on Saturday after he died during a £1.3million rescue operation
The mission had aimed to return the humpback whale to its habitat in the Atlantic Ocean after it became stranded in the Baltic Sea in March
His carcass will be examined next week to determine his cause of death, according to the Danish Environmental Protection Agency.
Danish news outlet News5 published a livestream of the body being dragged onto the shoreline by a cable attached to a truck on the beach.
It remains unclear why Timmy swam into the Baltic Sea, which is far from its habitat and unsuited to supporting whale life.
Some experts said the whale may have lost his way while swimming after a shoal of herring or during migration.
In late March, Timmy was rescued from shallow water in the German Baltic resort town of Timmendorfer Strand with the help of an excavator but he ran into trouble again nearby.
Local media produced days-long livestreams and news sites alerted readers to the smallest developments in the whale’s situation.
Timmy had been taken towards the North Sea in a water-filled barge as part of the privately-funded rescue mission
In early April experts said they had given up hope and expected Timmy to die in the inlet where he was stranded at the time.
But the whale’s deteriorating condition prompted a controversy that drew in privately funded rescuers, regional authorities and the scientific community.
Activists staged protests calling for the animal’s rescue while influencers debated the best way to help him.
Two entrepreneurs, Karin Walter-Mommert and Walter Gunz, stepped in to finance the rescue.
They hatched a plan to coax the whale into the water-filled hold of a special barge and tow it back to its natural habitat.
Some experts criticised the rescue plan saying it would cause the ailing and exhausted animal more distress.
Till Backhaus, environment minister for the Mecklenburg-West Pomerania region, where the whale first got into difficulties, said his death should make people ‘take the protection of nature, preserving species and climate change even more seriously’.
Calling for lessons to be learned from the incident, Mr Backhaus said he wanted to have talks with the Danish authorities about what would be done with the animal and about the private initiative that tried to save the whale.
Mr Backhaus added that the effort had given the whale ‘a last chance to recover its freedom and health’, but it had not been able to take that chance.
He stressed in a statement that ‘acquiescing to the rescue attempt doesn’t constitute criticism of science’ and added: ‘I think it is absolutely human to use even the smallest chance when a life is at stake.’
