The last farewell to Timmy: the carcass of the beached humpback whale will become biodiesel and biomass (and the skeleton will end up in a museum)

The long marine odyssey that has kept thousands of people in suspense for months has reached its final chapter on the remote and touristy Danish island of Anholt. The remains of the majestic cetacean, affectionately renamed “Timmy” or “Hope” by the volunteers, will not rest in the ocean floor, but will be entirely recycled and reconverted within the specialized factory of the Daka Denmark company, located in Randers. An extreme ecological transition that will transform the animal’s fat into fuel and the skeleton into biodiesel and biomass.

The autopsy revealed it was a female

The delicate and complex recovery operations, which lasted several hours under the eyes of journalists and onlookers, required the application of a strict international biological protocol to avoid explosion risks due to decomposition gases accumulated in the tissues. The veterinarians initially had to degas the carcass using a long sharp knife, and then proceed to section the adipose layer using excavators.

Although the carcass seems to belong with absolute certainty to Timmy, the scientific community is still awaiting official laboratory confirmation. However, the first autopsy tests have already revealed a sensational surprise: the mammal, always identified as a young male, was actually a female. Parasites and a fragment of fishing net were found in his gastrointestinal tract, indicating a serious state of general debilitation.

What will happen to Timmy: from fuel to finds for Copenhagen

The industrial disposal procedure provides for a clear separation of the biological components of the cetacean. The drained liquids will be completely purified before being discharged into the surrounding fjord. The huge, thick layer of adipose fat will be converted into biodiesel, a clean alternative to traditional fossil fuels.

Instead, all remaining tissues – including tendons, skin and most bones – will undergo a process of mechanical shredding until they become a very fine organic flour, destined to be burned as biomass in the ovens of a cement plant for the production of thermal energy. Fortunately, a part of the cetacean will be saved from destruction: some specific anatomical sections of the pelvis and fins will be donated to the Natural History Museum in Copenhagen for educational and scientific research purposes.

The many rescue attempts until the tragic epilogue

The dramatic stranding in Denmark has rekindled a bitter international debate on the management of protected marine fauna. The whale was spotted in serious difficulty at the end of March in the Baltic Sea, a basin too closed and not very salty for this species. At the end of April, a consortium of wealthy private entrepreneurs had financed a massive transfer on a cargo barge to release the animal into the North Sea.

An operation strongly contested by marine biologists, who had judged the transport to be a useless and lethal stress factor for an already irremediably condemned animal. And sadly, that was it, with Timmy turning up dead. The definitive answers on the death will come from the analysis of the satellite tracker recovered on the carcass: the data from the tracker, partially in the hands of the Ministry of the Environment of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, will soon be made public to clarify the latest movements of the humpback whale.

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