A whale washed up on the shores of Ireland, leaving officials baffled by the rare occurrence.<\/p>\n
What happened?<\/p>\n
On the northern coast of Ireland, a dead narwhal was spotted by a family on Sweet Nellies Beach outside Greencastle, according to Donegal Daily<\/a>.<\/p>\n Dr. Simon Berrow, CEO of the Irish Whale and Dolphin group, described it as a “remarkable stranding.”<\/p>\n This is the first sighting of a narwhal in Ireland on record. It’s native to the Arctic<\/a> and rarely seen outside of the northern waters of Canada, Russia, and Greenland.<\/p>\n Why is it concerning?<\/p>\n Though narwhals have a strong wild population and are not considered threatened or endangered, they are still being affected by a warming planet<\/a>, like many other species. This could explain how the narwhal traveled so far south to Ireland.<\/p>\n Rising global temperatures are melting the Arctic ice in their habitat, and pollution harms the water they live in. Narwhals have also been a hunting target for centuries.<\/p>\n “The narwhal is an arctic species that is mainly found in cooler waters,” said Christopher O’Sullivan, minister for nature, heritage, and biodiversity, per Donegal Daily.<\/p>\n “Findings like this are a stark reminder of the vulnerability of wildlife in the face of a changing climate, and the need to protect them.”<\/p>\n Narwhals are important to aquatic ecosystems as they control prey populations and contribute to nutrient cycling<\/a>. The absence of the whales from their traditional habitats could have serious knock-on effects on biodiversity, with issues reaching all the way up to the human food supply.<\/p>\n What’s being done about it?<\/p>\n The Irish Whale and Dolphin Group retrieved the narwhal carcass from the beach and had it sent to the Regional Laboratory in Cork for tests and analysis.<\/p>\n It is hoped the results will reveal more about the narwhal’s life and give clues as to why it ended up so far from home.<\/p>\n “To have an Arctic species stranded for the first time is somewhat unexpected,” Berrow said.<\/p>\n “However we recorded another Arctic species, a bowhead whale, in Ireland for the first time in 2016, so maybe this reflects a breaking down [of] Arctic ecosystems as the ice melts.”<\/p>\n Get TCD’s free newsletters<\/a> for easy tips to save more, waste less, and make smarter choices \u2014 and earn up to $5,000 toward clean upgrades in TCD’s exclusive Rewards Club<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A whale washed up on the shores of Ireland, leaving officials baffled by the rare occurrence. What happened?…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377253,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[203369,64,63,157971,26779,35376,203368,162842,203370,128,203367,338],"class_list":{"0":"post-377252","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-arctic-species","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-donegal","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-irish-whale-and-dolphin-group","14":"tag-narwhal","15":"tag-northern-waters","16":"tag-rare-occurrence","17":"tag-science","18":"tag-simon-berrow","19":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}