Internal documents from the Ministry for the Environment of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern appear to cast doubt on the assertions made by Minister Till Backhaus (SPD) regarding the deceased humpback whale. According to reports by Spiegel, Minister Backhaus appeared at a press conference on Friday to suggest that state experts from the Agency for Environment, Nature Conservation and Geology (LUNG) had fully “analyzed” the tracker data of the whale that died in Denmark.
However, sources within the government in Schwerin indicate that the ministry only received a link containing the marine mammal’s movement data from a private rescue initiative. Experts believe the data provided represents only a small fraction of what the Splash10-F type device is capable of recording and transmitting. The only thing confirmed, according to information sourced from a communication between the ministry and the LUNG, is that after being released, the whale traveled “215 kilometers” based on the recorded location points.
When questioned by ministerial officials about how it could be definitively confirmed that the whale survived from May 2nd until May 6th or 7th, or whether it might have simply drifted to death in the current, the agency responded that the available data “cannot definitively confirm” this. They added that reliable interpretations regarding swimming or drifting speeds would require connecting the analysis to currently missing information-specifically data on dive depths and temperature.
Despite this uncertainty, however, Backhaus told the press that the whale lived until May 6th or 7th. The Ministry has yet to respond to a subsequent, immediate inquiry on the matter.
Furthermore, Burkard Baschek, Director of the German Marine Museum Stralsund, who also viewed the transmitted tracker data, voiced doubts about the Minister’s claims. He stated that he could not speak to the multi-day dives Backhaus had mentioned during the press conference. In the data set, he had only found “hints of the whale’s dives within the first four hours” following its release.
