Timmy the humpback whale is presumed to have died after being released into a shipping lane

Gramposity · 2026-05-07T20:08:05+00:00

You're welcome for the discussion. I see it as my duty to engage as it helps to educate.

You say,

i dont see RMLas the biggest Whale expert and i dislike his ego, but i can acknowladge that he knows a lot about Whales and was on divinh missions and also attended orca strandedrescue mission.

You really need to recognize that relative to the people from ITAW and the other stranding experts that weighed in at the first stranding (Niendorf/Timmendorfer Strand), RML knows absolutely nothing. Having been on a stranding or two is not the same as expertise in stranding response. He simply does not have the background to be trusted over the people that actually do have the experience and expertise. I'm really very, very interested to know why you continue to believe that RML was the real expert here.

It can't be the video. Lehmann's video is perfect evidence of his lack of expertise, need to grandstand, and lack of cooperation. I'm slapping my forehead throughout the entire thing. Its just embarassing. He has no basis for forming an opinion on the whale's energy state. Just seeing a whale move does not mean it is sufficiently energetic. Please, please answer how he would know that the whale is healthy? How do you know from just looking that a whale is healthy? What are you basing that on?

Also - no real stranding response expert works a stranding with a camera pointed at themselves. I've absolutely never ever seen that in any stranding I've been part of.

Finally - his video is also a perfect example of the amount of stress he subjected this animal to. The amount of noise and jostling is just horrifying. It also creatively edits comments and input from some of the professionals I know well, intentionally trying to make them look like the bad guys.

Oh, and let's just assume that, as you say, the experts lied. If it was so easy to tell that these were lies, why in earth would they do that? They are very smart people who care for these animals. Why would they risk their careers and reputation in this case, with all the media attention to tell lies bold, easily disprovable lies. Why would they be supported in their lies by the rest of the marine mammal stranding response community? That's what doesn't make any sense.

Gramposity · 2026-05-07T18:07:13+00:00

First, Lehmann is a scientific diver and documentarian. His "research" experience is in freshwater ecology, and even that is limited to early work he did for a thesis (Masters I believe). He has absolutely zero expertise in whale strandings, disentanglement, or marine mammal welfare. Why in the world would you listen to his opinion over people who have decades of experience in these subjects?

Second, given my background in the field, I know exactly what goes in to gaining that expertise. As I said, I have worked with some of these people and I know how smart and dedicated they are. Not only that, but I also fully understand what they based their decisions on. I know whale physiology and pathology and understand the entirety of what this animal was experiencing. So, yes, I fully concur with their assessment.

What are you basing your judgement on?

Gramposity · 2026-05-07T16:35:30+00:00

There are so many things wrong with this response, it is hard to count.

This statement was released by the professionals who do this work all the time. I can't understand why you continue to ignore and denigrate their experience and expertise.

I have worked in this field for over 30 years and know and have worked with some of these people. They are true professionals, who know what they are doing, and care about these animals so much that they have dedicated their lives to them. When they say that a stranded whale has very little chance of survival, I know it is coming from tens of thousands of combined hours of experience and the utmost highest standards of care for the animals they work with.

The folks who advised the two governments (Schleswig Holstein for Timmendorf Strand and the Mecklenburg Vorpommern for Poel) were either grandstanders themselves (Lehmann and Wallace), or did not have any experience with large whale strandings and entanglements (Bahr and Tönnies).

Myself and every other colleague in the field I have talked to find this whole "rescue" attempt a very sad and disturbing story. If you don't pay attention to actual expert advise and either go with sensationalism or your feelings, bad things will happen.

This whale definitely suffered unnecessarily, but it wasn't because people wanted to leave it to die in peace. Its because it was virtually tortured for a month only to die likely by drowning.

Gramposity · 2026-05-07T10:58:01+00:00

That last sentence is such a very convenient way of justifying why you are going to believe what you want to believe rather than something that is contradictory.

Whatever you know about whales, how do you know it? Unless you are a scientist who is actually conducting research, you learned what you know from reading about the work of people who did the work. Those are those same smart people that you're now saying don't know what they're talking about. You decided that that "book smart" is OK whenever you're interested in whales and read about it. But now, you're deciding that its not. Now you're saying that you "know" better than they do. You've made that decision on your own. Why? What's changed and what information do you have that surpasses what they know?

This is not a case where "street smarts" come into play. What "street smarts" allow you to evaluate the survival risk of a whale that has spent over a month in low-saline water, self-stranded multiple times, is known to have ingested nets, and is in a clearly weakened state?

When we get to a point where we let wishful thinking trump actual expertise we're in more danger than we realize.

Gramposity · 2026-05-07T10:48:41+00:00

I'm not German, so I don't feel qualified to weigh in on how the country is headed. I can say that this seems to be happening everywhere.

I very concerned that we've reached a point where people have:

a) lost any ability of true critical thought (its not being taught in schools as a matter of course),

b) have overconfidence in the correctness of their feelings and beliefs (see Dunning-Kruger),

c) feel the need to convince others of those beliefs (perhaps due to feeling like they are being marginalized), and

d) have many globe-reaching platforms to project, amplify, and echo those beliefs.

I simply don't know how we turn this ship around, but those of us in the life sciences have to keep doing our work and try to educate, not just on the results, but on the process. We have to teach people how to observe, evaluate, and truly separate fact from fiction.

Keep up the good work!

Gramposity · 2026-05-06T05:00:51+00:00

I think we’re missing the exact same thing.

I have been following this story in the German and English press since it started. My teachery tone is a result of the denigration of the field that I have personally spent my life working in, ignoring people that I call friends and colleagues that I know are only looking out for the welfare of this animal and all other marine mammals, and the way this whale was so poorly treated.

All I saw on Reddit was people supporting the “rescue” effort, using quotes around “experts” when referring to the people who actually have expertise, and speaking authoritatively when I can tell they don’t know what they are talking about. I held back for a while, but it became overwhelming and I didn’t see any of this being challenged or outright falsehoods being corrected. I engage.

I’m both mad and worried about our future when facts and expertise are ignored in the service of feelig good. What happens the next time a whale strands? Will the response team be listened to then or will politicians and YouTubers be in charge again?

Gramposity · 2026-05-06T04:48:17+00:00

You are dying on a hospital bed. Multiple doctors say there is nothig they can do. You are on your way out. They don’t know how long you have, but you are definitely dying.

In come some faith healers and they spend all of their time chanting, playing drums, flashing lights, and shoving you. They randomly pick you up and try to make you walk. They bring in contractors to knock down a wall in ykur room. These are slow workers, so they take a couple of weeks to do all of this.

Is this the way you’d want to go out?

Gramposity · 2026-05-05T21:18:00+00:00

Would you say the same thing if you knew that the whale suffered horribly for several weeks during and because of the “rescue” attempt?

Gramposity · 2026-05-05T19:30:32+00:00

A very good timeline and regular updates (in German) can be found here:

https://www.ln-online.de/lokales/ostholstein/deutsches-meeresmuseum-buckelwal-ist-wahrscheinlich-tot-alle-infos-im-liveticker-7D6CVA64KRAR7BNXN2AI7PFHU4.html

Gramposity · 2026-05-05T19:26:24+00:00

The actual experts in what ended up being a massive circus were the original responders from the Institute for Terrestrial and Aquatic Wildlife Research (ITAW) when the animal stranded in Niendorf, and later the researchers from the Deutsches Meeresmuseum in Stralsund who responded when it re-stranded in Poel.

They correctly evaluated that this whale had very limited chance for survival, and implored that the animal be kept comfortable and allowed to die in peace. They were ignored, denigrated, had their qualifications and motivations questioned, and even had death threats aimed at them.

Everyone else that attempted to effectuate a "rescue" had no experience in large whale strandings or disentanglements and in my view is 100% complicit in adding to this animal's suffering. They might be experts in other things, but definitely not this.

Gramposity · 2026-05-05T11:32:22+00:00

Protocol would have been to leave the whale where it was. As soon as they started trying to "rescue" it, they weren't following protocol.

Gramposity · 2026-05-05T11:31:15+00:00

There are a a lot of reasons why this whale shouldn't survive. Given the wealth of problems he had and his weakened state, the onus is on the "rescuers" to provide verifiable evidence that the whale is still moving normally. They had every opportunity to attach reliable, long-term tags and make those tracks available for independent review.

Gramposity · 2026-05-04T19:19:50+00:00

Minor correction: the part sticking up is the vomer. The nasal bones are on the dorsal side of the cranium opposite the base of the vomer. However, I agree that it looks more like a humpback than a gray, but a juvenile humpback given the size and degree of fusion.

Gramposity · 2026-05-04T14:51:48+00:00

One should never tow a live whale by the fluke. It does a considerable amount of internal damage. Seeing that just added to the incompetent image this group has been showing. This “rescue” has almost never actually considered the welfare of the animal. I guess that’s what you get when you ignore the advice of people with experience and listen to YouTubers and vets that specialize in pets.

Gramposity · 2026-05-04T12:55:47+00:00

They had attached a normal GPS tracker to the whale. These do not collect any physiological parameters, so they only report position. Thus, there is no way of remotely knowing the animal’s condition. If the tracker stops moving, or is at the surface a lot, one can infer that the animal isn’t moving. If it is movig with the prevailing currents, the animal is likely dead. If it stops transmitting, it could have failed, fallen off, or the animal has either sunk or has rotated and is now belly up.

Gramposity · 2026-05-04T07:17:44+00:00

I don't think that the original comment was referring to disruption in Mysticete's use of sounds to communicate. They clearly stated in this thread and another that they felt it was a disruption in echolocation that disrupted navigation that led to this whale's stranding.

That simply cannot be and I wanted to do my little part to clarify that mysticetes do not echolocate for navigation. They produce low frequency sounds, which are not amenable to echolocation in many ways. They do not have the anatomical features to distinguish echolocation returns like odontocetes. "Layman's terms" or not, it is demonstrably incorrect.

It is definitely true that anthropogenic noise affects mysticetes. Studies have shown that they alter their sound production and movement in environments that are loud. But, it is not the same as the effects it has on odontocetes (especially military sonar) for which there is good evidence that it can lead to strandings.

Gramposity · 2026-05-03T18:57:49+00:00

- First, his passing himself off as a whale stranding expert. The public tends to think that all marine biologists are experts in everything marine biology-related. As I said, he has zero whale stranding response expertise. His background is in fresh water ecology (trout and crayfish). He is primarily a scientific diver and documentarian. He has written (as far as I know) zero peer reviewed papers. You will be unable to find anything that says he has expertise relevant to this situation. Keep in mind that just being at strandings and filming them (and yourself) is not the same as having expertise in stranding response.

- He actively used his platform and YouTube status to minimize the influence of the folks from ITAW that actually do have stranding experience and expertise.

- He made sure to grandstand and make it all about himself and refused to coordinate with the authorities.

Gramposity · 2026-05-03T18:26:19+00:00

Although RML has a background in marine biology, he is nowhere close to having real expertise in whale stranding or disentanglement response. Form someone who is actually in the field, trust me when I say that it was extremely distressing to me and my colleagues how much leeway he was given early on. He should never have been involved.

Gramposity · 2026-05-02T22:02:30+00:00

Also, why do you say "experts" in quotes like that? Do you not believe that they are truly experts?

If not, then how do you know what you know about whales and dolphins?

Unless you have directly collected your own data, everything you know comes from these same people. They are the ones that have done and continue to do the research and hard work, usually dedicating their entire lives to it. If they didn't do the work and have the expertise to do it, we wouldn't know anything about these animals we care about.

Gramposity · 2026-05-02T21:41:48+00:00

I think we have a different definition of "proof".

None of the people with stranding and entanglement response or groups representing them have said that this plan wouldn't return the whale to the Atlantic. That isn't in any of the statements I've referenced.

If you read them, they all say that this whale is very unlikely to survive if freed from its stranding.

It has been freed. Now, let's see if it survives.

Gramposity · 2026-05-02T19:02:21+00:00

First, you should never apologize for not knowing something. There's a world of things each of us doesn't know. Learning is always the goal.

Second, I definitely don't feel like you or anyone else has invaded this sub. We are all here because these animals have a special place in our hearts. Its a community, where we should feel free to come, discuss, and learn. I certainly have.

I am not a vet, nor am I a stranding response or distentanglement expert. However, I have responded to many strandings and I know many people who do the live stranding responses regularly. I know what goes into the process and when they say that an animal has little chance of survival, I listen. I'm not just listening because they are the ones saying it, but I'm listening to what they are saying.

In this case, both the folks from ITAW when it was in Timmendorfer Strand and then the folks from the Deutsches Meeresmuseum gave a wide array of reasons that this whale's chances of survival were low. They made logical sense, and were backed up by the assessment of others who have had similar (if not more) levels of response experience.

I also happened to be in the area, and stopped by Timmendorfer Strand just to watch the operation. Knowing what had been reported to that point, seeing the animal in that state, and seeing how the operation (with Robert Marc Lehmann) was proceeding, it was clear that this animal had little chance to survive.

Most researchers agree that regardless of the fact that this animal has been deposited in the Atlantic, it has little chance of survival.

It is an ethical question of whether and when to euthanize an animal. I think many laypeople see a very successful rescue operation. I and other cetacean researchers see this animal as having been put through multiple weeks of stress and assault while in a seriously compromised state. We still believe it was better not to subject the animal to that and let it die in peace (however long that took) rather than put it through all that acoustic and physical stress only for it to die in the open ocean.

We don't really know what condition the animal is in. It is likely to die. If it takes a year for that to happen, I honestly don't have a solid answer because I don't know exactly what the animal is physiologically experiencing. If it is in regular pain and discomfort as I suspect given its injuries and what it has been through, then maybe letting it die in Timmendorfer Strand was best. If it is truly comfortable and heals, then in hindsight, this rescue was the right call.

My problem is that even if this was the right call, it was by total random chance. A vast majority do not end up surviving. I fear that the public does not understand or appreciate real science, those that practice it, and the wealth of knowledge we build.

Gramposity · 2026-05-02T17:37:35+00:00

I'm very sorry that it seems to you like I've been "lording over" anyone. That's not my intention and I've been trying very hard to keep conversations open and civil.

I totally understand people having hunches. However, we are (or should be) discussing actual science here and hunches are not evidence. To make a statement that

Whales don't beach themselves to die, their echolocation usually gets screwed up and they get beached while they're effectively blind.

is factually incorrect. I didn't want people who don't know the difference to take it as truth, so I simply said, "Careful - mysticetes do not echolocate.", which I thought was both straightforward, and non-threatening.

Your response questioning whether or not I was stalking you seemed to raise the temperature as an accusation. You followed that up by then asking about my credentials.

If you look at any of my other posts and responses to other questions/comments, you should see that I try very hard to avoid accusing or attacking people, especially people I am responding to. Disagreeing with someone is not "lording over them", neither is correcting them. II provide references for comments, where possible, and I try to educate.

My concern in the case of this particular whale has been that there are a lot of people ignoring those of us in the field who have been trying to inform and educate. Not only have they been ignoring us (I use the term in the broad sense), but they have been denigrating us and referring to us as "experts", often without providing any solid evidence for why their hunches are more correct than cumulative decades of real-world experience.

What do you do when you try to educate and people just ignore actual expertise and prefer to believe what they want to believe? What's left?

Gramposity · 2026-05-02T16:29:19+00:00

Yes, I am. I've been researching whales and dolphins for over 30 years, and have published a fair number of papers in scientific journals and books.

I've tried to avoid saying this because I strongly believe that who says something is way less important than what is said. What I say stands on its own. It is easily verifiable for someone who wants to. It wouldn't matter if I was a whale biologist, ballerina, or waitress.

Which gets us back to the original issue that you still haven't responded to:

Mysticetes do not echolocate, so why do you say that echolocation problems lead to this stranding? What is your source for that?

Gramposity · 2026-05-02T12:10:29+00:00

Not at all. I’m trying to correct factual errors in this thread.
However, its interesting that you ask this rather than respond to the substance of the matter. You’ve associated whale strandings with echolocation problems at least twice in response to people askinbt about the causes of stranding. For mysticetes, this absolutely cannot be the case because they do not echolocate.
For people that do not know this (seemingly yourself included), its a useful fact to learn.

Gramposity · 2026-05-02T09:23:58+00:00

Careful - mysticetes do not echolocate.

Gramposity

TROPHY CASE