Rare Sowerby's beaked whale spotted in the Baltic Sea

A rare Sowerby’s beaked whale has been helped back in to the sea by anglers after becoming stranded on the shoreline around Wohlenberger Wiek, a semi-circular bay in the southwest part of the Wismar Bay on the Baltic coast.

This is a very unusual event as Sowerby’s are a deep-diving species and would not be expected to be found in the Baltic sea. It is thought that the whale probably got into the Baltic by mistake as they are more commonly found in the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. The species has been sighted only once before in the German Baltic Sea, in 1913.

Researchers at the scene reported that the whale looked healthy, but may struggle to find food. The whale would also have a difficult trip of several hundreds of miles to make it back to waters deep enough to survive.

(Copyright Photo: Deutsches Meeresmuseum Stralsund / Michael Dähne)