Efforts to rescue a humpback whale stranded for weeks on Germany's Baltic Sea coast were complicated on Monday when the animal unexpectedly swam away but then appeared to have got stuck again.
The 13.5-metre whale and its struggle for survival have captured the hearts of the German public, with some of the press calling him "Timmy."
Rescuers had cleared sand away from the spot where the whale had been stuck for around three weeks off the island of Poel, near Wismar, and sent a tugboat to be used in the rescue effort.
The plan was to lift the whale from the seabed using inflatable cushions and transport it with pontoons back to the North Sea or possibly as far as the Atlantic Ocean.
However, the animal swam free on its own on Monday, before coming to a halt on a different sandbank nearby, said Till Backhaus, environment minister for the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
Rescuers see the escape attempt as a sign that the whale is still relatively healthy and plan to try again, the Bild newspaper reported.
Backhaus, speaking at the scene, insisted the animal this time had not become fully stranded and was instead "resting."
The creature was first spotted stuck on a sandbank on 23 March near the city of Lübeck before freeing itself and then becoming stuck again several times.
On 1 April, regional officials said they were convinced that the badly injured and distressed animal was going to die and could no longer be saved.
But local authorities last week approved a last-ditch rescue attempt proposed by two entrepreneurs, one of whom founded the major electronics retail chain MediaMarkt.
