A whale dragged to the port of Świnoujście and sunk in the Baltic Sea

The approximately 15-meter-long whale, dragged to the Świnoujście gas port on July 25, was transported to the open sea last weekend and sunk. According to PAP, the operation was carried out at the expense of the ship's owner and with the consent of the Regional Directorate for Environmental Protection.

The dead whale was dragged to Świnoujście by a tanker transporting gas to the LNG terminal. The huge mammal was spotted drifting in the water on July 25. It was secured by maritime services and sunk in the Baltic Sea on Saturday (August 2).

On Friday, the whale was placed on board a special vessel, which transported it to sea before dawn on Saturday, Ewa Wieczorek, spokeswoman for the Maritime Office in Szczecin, confirmed to PAP.

The operation was carried out quietly. At the request of the tanker's owner and at his expense, the Maritime Office obtained permission from the Regional Directorate for Environmental Protection in Szczecin to sink the animal "to spontaneous decomposition in the Pomeranian Bay." The whale was transported several miles out to sea and placed at a depth of several meters.

It was about 15 meters long and weighed about 12 tons, but it was not complete, Wieczorek noted.

A spokeswoman for the Maritime Office explained that the whale was decomposing. She described removing it from the water as dangerous, but emphasized that the operation was carried out quickly and efficiently.

"The remains had been in the water for at least several weeks, maybe months," Professor Andrzej Ossowski, head of the Department of Forensic Medicine and the Department of Forensic Genetics at the Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin, told PAP while observing the operation in Świnoujście. "We wanted to collect samples, bone material. As a geneticist, I was very interested in this, but it turned out to be too dangerous. The whale could have 'exploded,'" Ossowski added.

The scientist assessed that, given the advanced state of decomposition, sinking the whale at sea was the most prudent decision. The remains were unsuitable for scientific research, a decision that interested, among others, Wolin National Park.

"According to the literature, such material is a natural element of the environment. Submerged remains become a feeding ground. This builds an ecosystem. From an ecological perspective, this is the right thing to do," Ossowski emphasized.

He noted that the body of the marine mammal, commonly called a whale, will become "something like a reef" and will be quickly colonized by various marine organisms.

The species of cetacean dragged into the port of Świnoujście has not been definitively identified. Scientists and environmentalists initially suggested it might be a minke whale, but the size of the animal retrieved from the water ruled out such a species classification. Regional Directorate for Environmental Protection (RDOŚ) documents list it as "cetacean – other species."

It is also unknown where the whale was dragged onto the ship's bow. WWF Poland spokeswoman Agnieszka Veljković told the Polish Press Agency (PAP) on July 25 that initial suspicions point to the Danish Straits region, but pinpointing the animal's location may be difficult.

The mammal was embedded in the ship's bow. It slipped during the tanker's maneuvers in the port basin. The incident did not cause any operational problems at the LNG terminal, as confirmed by Weronika Gocłowska, spokeswoman for the Szczecin and Świnoujście Seaports Authority. On Saturday, after the whale was removed from the quayside, another delivery of liquefied natural gas to Świnoujście took place.

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