San Francisco Frontiers - Denmark to autopsy 'Timmy' the whale

Dubbed "Timmy" in Germany, the whale died after being transported into the North Sea off Denmark aboard a barge and released on May 2 in a last-ditch rescue operation to save the cetacean, which had struggled since beaching near the German coast.

Its carcass was spotted off the Danish island of Anholt, with the authorities confirming Timmy's death on May 16.

Since then, Timmy's corpse has been lying in shallow waters near a popular beach, causing "significant disturbance", Jane Hansen, an official at the Danish Environmental Protection Agency, told AFP in an email.

The whale will therefore be moved on Thursday to the eastern port of Grenaa, "where conditions are better suited for the continued work with the whale".

"In Grenaa, researchers and veterinarians will carry out the examinations and sample collection procedures that have previously been conducted in connection with other strandings of larger whales," Hansen said.

If all goes well with the transfer -- a delicate operation involving several ships -- the post-mortem will be carried out on Friday.

If the operation fails, work will continue on the island of Anholt instead.

Some of the whale's samples and fragments will become part of museum collections.

After Timmy was first spotted stricken on a sandbank on March 23, the marine mammal's travails gripped Germany for weeks, with media flocking to the Baltic coast to follow the various attempts to get the whale swimming again.

But after several failed attempts, some experts criticised the continued rescues -- privately financed by wealthy entrepreneurs -- as pointless.

Rescuers said they received death threats and the police had to keep onlookers at a distance day and night.

Q.Nelson--SFF