Dead whale towed ashore in Denmark ahead of autopsy

The carcass of a dead humpback whale whose attempted rescue captivated many across Germany has been pulled ashore.

Timelapsed footage published by German news site News5 on Saturday showed the whale being towed slowly onto a beach on the Danish island of Anholt by an industrial winch. Denmark's environment agency intends to conduct a post-mortem examination on Thursday.

Several attempts were made to get the whale - nicknamed "Timmy" and "Hope" - back into the North Sea, after it got stuck in the Baltic Sea in March.

However, the aquatic mammal was already considered ailing and close to death when a final, last-ditch attempt was made earlier in May.

The whale, originally about 12-15m (40-50ft) in length, has gained in size because of a build-up of gas as the carcass decomposes, and there is concern it could explode - as washed-up whale carcasses have been known to do.

Morten Abildstrøm, a Danish Environmental Agency official on the island of Anholt, told daily newspaper Jyllands Posten that the whale would be cut into pieces after veterinarians and researchers had travelled there to take samples.

Those pieces will then be taken elsewhere to be destroyed, he said.

The whale was discovered off Anholt's shoreline earlier in May, two weeks after a private mission to save the humpback from being stranded on Germany's Baltic Sea coast ended in failure.