Expert brands rescue of Timmy the whale ‘an all-round catastrophe’ over deficient tracker

Marine biologists step up criticism of privately funded operation to release stranded humpback whale off Germany’s Baltic coast

Marine biologists and whale experts have stepped up their criticism of a privately funded operation to release a humpback whale that was stranded for weeks off Germany’s Baltic Coast after it emerged that a tracker fitted to the whale was not working.

The whereabouts and health of the young male whale – nicknamed Timmy after one of the sandbanks that it was stranded on – remain unknown three days after it was transported in a water-holding barge pulled by a tugboat to waters off the coast of Denmark.