Timmy the whale confirmed dead by Danish authorities

Timmy the whale has been confirmed dead by Danish authorities two weeks after the beached humpback was transported to the North Sea in a rescue attempt criticised as “pure animal cruelty”.

Denmark’s Environmental Protection Agency said a whale had been found dead on Friday near ​the small ⁠island of Anholt in the Kattegat, a broad strait between Denmark and Sweden, and confirmed it was Timmy on Saturday.

Jane Hansen, division head at the Danish Environmental Protection Agency, said in a statement: “It can now be confirmed that the stranded humpback whale near Anholt is the same whale that was previously stranded in Germany and was the subject of rescue attempts.”

She added that conditions on Saturday made it possible for a Danish Nature Agency employee to locate and retrieve a tracking device that was fastened to the whale’s back, and “the position and appearance of the device confirm that this is the same whale that had previously been observed and handled in German waters”.

The 10-metre long calf became a global sensation after it was spotted stranded on Timmendorfer beach, a sandbank in shallow waters off the coast of Germany, nearly two months ago.

As its health deteriorated, German officials gave up trying to rescue the mammal, saying they believed it could not be freed.

But after a national outcry, two millionaires in Germany said they were prepared to pay “whatever it costs” to release the creature.

The rescue attempt – which is believed to have cost about €1.5m (£1.3m) – involved floating Timmy away from the sandbanks and into a water-filled barge, which was pulled by a tugboat from Wismar Bay near the German city of Lübeck to deeper waters off the coast of Denmark.

It was criticised as “inadvisable” by the International Whaling Commission because the male juvenile, nicknamed Timmy after the beach where he was stranded, appeared to be “severely compromised” and was unlikely to survive after its release.

Experts from the Oceanographic Museum in Stralsund on Germany’s Baltic coast also recommended Timmy should be left to die in peace.

The young whale was described as lethargic, weak and covered in blister-like blemishes after spending weeks in water with low salinity. Parts of its mouth were believed to have been caught in a fishing net.