A young humpback whale, that rescuers have dubbed Timmy, is struggling to find its way out of shallow bays ‌off the Baltic coast of Germany, after a week-long ordeal that ‌has put its survival in doubt.

The plight of Timmy, who measures between 12 to 15 metres in length, shows the difficulty of freeing such creatures given their size, with rescuers using dredging equipment and boats to guide the whale back onto a long route to the Atlantic.

After days of ‌efforts to free ‌the ⁠animal, rescuers are now hoping the whale will manage to ​make it out on its own.

“The whale is quite weak. We’re still hopeful that it will pull through,” Daniela von Schaper, a marine expert at Greenpeace, told Reuters.

People gathered on the pier to watch humpback whale in the Bay of Wismar. Photo: AAP

The whale, whose gender has not been established, was named after Timmendorfer Strand, ⁠the white sandy beach on ‌Germany’s resort-filled ​Baltic coastline where it was first spotted on a nearby sandbank on Monday.

Repeated ​rescue attempts have ‌failed since, with Greenpeace and its partners documenting an animal in severe ​stress with skin irritation and fishing gear entangled in its mouth.

There were brief glimmers of hope over the weekend, when the whale managed ​to ​free itself twice before running ​into difficulty again.

Humpback whales are not native ‌to the Baltic Sea.

While uncommon, large whales are spotted in the region every couple of years, according to von Schaper.

Conservationists say disrupted migration routes and human influence play a role in whale strandings around the world, though animals ​can also lose their way while searching for food.

“Some of them ​find their way out ⁠again, others unfortunately do not,” von Schaper said.

—AAP