The People To Whom Those Funds Belonged Thought So...

...ro your objections count for naught!

Timmy the whale is lost at sea, presumed dead. In normal circumstances, the loss of a young humpback whale would be a sad yet unremarkable part of the circle of life. Dead whales help sustain thousands of marine species – and are part of the global carbon cycle.

Yes, they provide much needed food for hideous slimy bottom-feeders, and this case has done much the same in providing publicity opportunities for their two-legged counterparts on land 

Amy Dickham, a professor of wildlife conservation at the University of Oxford, says there are many lessons to reflect on from the case. “It’s really striking that there’s been such a focus on this individual animal at such great cost during a time of great crisis for wildlife funding around the world,” she told me. “It is really questionable whether it was a good use of funds, particularly compared with issues that impact much greater numbers of whales, such as collisions with vessels and entanglements with fishing gear.”

Who are you to question that? It's not your money, and you have no say over how these people want to spend it, which it the real issue, isn't it?  Even more, I suspect, than the danger that the 'experts' might be proved wrong.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare said that the rescue for Timmy should “give us all pause”, highlighting it as an example of the challenges of social media.There’s a huge pressure to move rapidly and that doesn’t necessarily give experts the time to carefully consider what the best course of action should be, including things such as euthanasia, which might not be popular with the public but might be the best course of action for the animal’s welfare.”

Given what we know about what 'experts' choose to spend the money they are given on, I'll side with social media on this issue.

The Experts Can't Stand To Be Wrong And Worse, Unneeded...

Marine biologists and whale experts have stepped up their criticism of a privately funded operation to release a humpback whale that was stranded for weeks off Germany’s Baltic coast...

They never stopped, from the forst moment it looked as if their advise was going to be ignored. 

... after it emerged that a tracker fitted to the whale was not working.

Seems a strange thing to be so concerned about... 

The whereabouts and health of the young male whale – nicknamed Timmy after one of the sandbanks it was stranded on – remain unknown three days after it was transported in a water-holding barge pulled by a tugboat to waters off the coast of Denmark.

A rescue that the experts all deperately wanted to see fail, bevause fot it to succeed would prove them wrong. 

The rescue initiative, estimated to have cost about €1.5m, was funded in part by Karin Walter-Mommert, the owner of one of the largest racehorse portfolios in Europe.

The whale was first spotted stuck on a sandbank on 23 March near the city of Lübeck, on Germany’s Baltic Sea coast, before freeing itself and then becoming stuck again several times.

The environment minister for Germany’s Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania state gave the green light for the attempt to save the whale, despite some warnings from the scientific community that it may be too much for the animal.

...whale researcher Fabian Ritter told German media... that if it was not possible to determine if the whale had died then the entire operation would have been in vain.

Au contraire, if it dies out at sea that's better than the huge clean-up operation that would have been needed to dispose of a health hazard on shore. 

The whale was last photographed swimming in the strait of Skagerrak.

And the experts are furious. 

There were also confusing reports surrounding the decision to release the whale. Kirsten Tönnies, a vet who had been on board the Fortuna B, one of two rescue ships accompanying the whale, was reportedly barred from witnessing the second and final release attempts. Tönnies said that tensions had been high between the experts on board and the ship’s crew. She said she disagreed with how the whale was released backward from the barge and with the fact she had been barred from giving the medical all-clear beforehand.

The one thing 'experts' cannot abide - that they aren't listened to.