Public requested to report sightings to German Oceanographic Museum
On the mornings of July 27th and 28th, a whale was spotted in the Bay
of Greifswald. This was followed by another sighting by a family of
sailors on July 30th that lasted a considerable period of time.
The whale, a humpback whale, was captured on film for a few seconds. It
is possible that this was the same animal that had been caught in a
fishing net in Gdansk in Poland on July 4th and freed collectively by
harbour police, coast guards and scientists.
In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, up till 2010, there had been three instances
of humpback whale sightings, in 1978, 2003 and 2008. In 2014, a
humpback whale and her calf spent the winter in the Baltic Sea.
To enable the whale currently in the Bay of Greifswald to be identified
accurately, the German Oceanographic Museum is requesting the public to
send in their photos and sightings of the whale to schweinswalsichtung.de or via the app “Baltic Animal” (available
on both Android and iOS). They can also email to
michael.daehne@meeresmuseum.de or call mobile number 0173-9688-267.
More information about the Whale Sightings Projekt and the app can be
found at
www.deutsches-meeresmuseum.de/wissenschaft/projekte/aktuell/sichtungsprojekt/.
Herbert
2nd August 2016
