{"id":152720,"date":"2025-11-21T22:56:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T22:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/152720\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T22:56:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T22:56:08","slug":"whale-never-before-seen-in-irish-waters-washes-up-on-donegal-beach-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/152720\/","title":{"rendered":"Whale never before seen in Irish waters washes up on Donegal beach \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A species of whale, never before recorded in Ireland, washed up in Co Donegal<\/a> last weekend, marking a \u201csignificant event\u201d linked to climate change<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The body of a female narwhal was retrieved by the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (IWDG) and regional staff from the National Parks and Wildlife Service<\/a> (NPWS), which reported the recovery on Friday. <\/p>\n

The narwhal is a toothed whale usually found exclusively in the Arctic waters of the north Atlantic. It is the first time the species has been recorded in Ireland. <\/p>\n

The carcass was found by a family walking on Sweet Nellie\u2019s Beach on the Inishowen Peninsula last weekend. <\/p>\n

\u201cVolunteers from the IWDG responded quickly and arrived at the scene to recover the carcass and collect skin samples,\u201d a statement from the NPWS said on Friday.<\/p>\n

IWDG and NPWS regional staff worked together to retrieve and transport the carcass to a laboratory in Cork for postmortem examination and tests. <\/p>\n

Christopher O\u2019Sullivan, Minister of State for Biodiversity, described the situation as \u201ca significant event\u201d likely caused by climate change. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is important that we try to find out more about why this species arrived on our coastline,\u201d Mr O\u2019Sullivan said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe narwhal is an Arctic species that is mainly found in cooler waters. 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AA male narwhal swimming near Baffin Island, Canada. The males of the species are famous for their long tusks and are often dubbed the unicorns of the sea. Photograph: Getty <\/p>\n

Dr Simon Berrow, chief executive of the IWDG, said the stranding was \u201cremarkable\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs our waters warm we have seen a northern movement of whales and dolphins in Irish waters as fish move north seeking cooler waters. To have an Arctic species stranded for the first time is somewhat unexpected,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr Berrow said a single stranding \u201ccannot display any trends, but it does show the importance of our long term monitoring schemes\u201d.<\/p>\n

Niall \u00d3 Donnch\u00fa, director general of the NPWS, said the event was \u201cextraordinary and unprecedented\u201d. <\/p>\n

As authorities await the results of tests, Mr \u00d3 Donnch\u00fa said the NPWS \u201cwill continue to work closely with our partners to monitor Ireland\u2019s marine environment and to better understand the impacts of climate and ecological change on vulnerable species\u201d.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Female sperm whales becoming more frequent off the coast of IrelandOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

There are an estimated 170,000 living narwhals worldwide. Male narwhals are famous for their long tusks, often being dubbed the unicorns of the sea. <\/p>\n

The NPWS said the narwhal population was threatened by the effects of climate change, such as reduction in ice cover and human activities including pollution and hunting.<\/p>\n

\u201cNarwhals have been hunted for thousands of years by Inuit in northern Canada and Greenland for meat and ivory, and regulated subsistence hunting continues to this day,\u201d a statement noted. <\/p>\n

Narwhals are rarely recorded outside the Arctic \u2013 before last weekend\u2019s discovery, the last narwhal stranding in Europe was when the body of a young male narwhal washed up in Belgium in 2016.<\/p>\n

Before that record, two females stranded in the Thames Estuary in Kent, England, in 1949. <\/p>\n

The only recorded sightings of narwhals in the wild in Europe are of two off Orkney and one off Aberdeenshire in Scotland in 1882, and one in the Hebrides in 1976. This is the 10th stranding record of a narwhal in western Europe and only the fourth female.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A species of whale, never before recorded in Ireland, washed up in Co Donegal last weekend, marking a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[85052,2885,1485,61,60,4875,82,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-152720","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-christoper-o-sullivan","9":"tag-climate-change","10":"tag-donegal","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-national-parks-and-wildlife-service","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}