Whale stranded off Germany for days free again

A humpback whale stranded for days off Germany's Baltic coast has freed itself after getting stuck on another sandbank.

Claus Tantzen, a spokesman for the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Ministry of the Environment, said the whale was being followed by the water police, since the waters in the area are very shallow and the animal may get stuck again.

The unlucky whale has attracted massive media attention since it ran aground on a sandbank early on Monday off Germany's Timmendorfer Strand resort, near the city of L?beck.

Days of efforts to free the 12-to-15-metre whale proved unsuccessful until rescuers dug out a channel in the surrounding sandusing a floating excavator onThursday, allowing the whale to swim free the following night.

However, environmentalists and marine experts had feared that the whale could get stuck again, as it was spotted heading back towards shallower water.

Those concerns became reality onSaturday, with the whale was spotted stranded on a sandbank in the Bay of Wismar, some 40km to the east of Timmendorfer Strand, according to Greenpeace.

Incidentally, it was found beached off the unpopulated island of Walfisch, which translates as whale in English.

"After managing to free itself from its [earlier] predicament, the whale was spotted again at midday today in the Bay of Wismar near the island," the state's environment ministry said at the time.

Followinginitial sightings on Saturday, a plethora of concerned officials, scientists and activists headed to the Bay of Wismar in case the creature needed help again.

Large whales such as humpbacks aren't native to the Baltic Sea but occasionally end up there after following schools of fish in search of food.

According to experts, underwater noise could also play a role in thiswhale'spresence in the Baltic Sea.

Biologists had been hoping the whale would make its way back west towards the North Sea, which would have allowed it to reach the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

Following its initial release, conservation groups used dinghies to form a kind of blockade to prevent it from entering shallow water again, trying to guide it further into the deeper waters of the Baltic Sea.

However, the whale was soon spotted further east, off the coast of the Mecklenburg district.

with DPA