A specimen of a rare species of whale spotted off the coast of Donegal last summer was recently sighted almost 5,000km (more than 3,000 miles) away in Boston.<\/p>\n
In July 2024, the North American right whale, a species that is usually found in waters surrounding America, was spotted in Donegal Bay.<\/p>\n
On November 19th, the same whale specimen was spotted in Massachusetts Bay.<\/p>\n
A US marine scientist said it was the first time a whale had been seen in both European and US waters \u201cin the modern era of right whales\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s pretty exciting,\u201d said Ryan Schosberg of the Centre for Coastal Studies.<\/p>\n
He was one of two researchers who spotted the whale in Massachusetts Bay while conducting a survey for the centre.<\/p>\n
There have been only \u201csix or seven instances\u201d of documented cases of right whales appearing in Irish or European waters, he said.<\/p>\n
The most recent sighting of the endangered whale was \u201cvery significant\u201d, said P\u00e1draig Whooley, a sightings officer with the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group. <\/p>\n
There are fewer than 400 remaining North American right whales. Prior to July 2024, there had not been a confirmed sighting of a right whale in Irish waters for more than a century.<\/p>\n
Researchers were able to analyse and compare the callosities or crustaceans that grow on the whale\u2019s head in a unique pattern to confirm it was the same whale.<\/p>\n
Mr Whooley said callosities were used \u201calmost as a fingerprint\u201d when identifying whales.<\/p>\n
He said the last confirmed sighting of the whale was off Co Mayo back when Ireland had whaling stations in the early 20th century.<\/p>\n
As far back a the 12th and 13th century, the species was \u201cwidespread\u201d across the Atlantic Ocean on both the European and American sides, he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Whooley said the Irish coast might be providing attractive conditions to encourage the whale\u2019s return.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf a whale has found Donegal Bay to be favourable and found good habitat there – and found plenty of food there – there\u2019s no reason to believe that individual may not return,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd if that individual brings some of his mates with him, well, then it\u2019s potentially going to take us into quite an interesting place.\u201d <\/p>\n
Climate change was \u201cprobably part of the reason\u201d why this type of whale has been spotted again in Irish waters after a century-long absence but there could be \u201clots of other factors\u201d, said Mr Whooley.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact that we have now matched this one animal between Donegal Bay and Boston just offers a glimmer of hope that some of the individuals in this struggling remnant population may well be seeking out new territory,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd if you\u2019re going to go somewhere well, why not go somewhere your ancestors once were?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A specimen of a rare species of whale spotted off the coast of Donegal last summer was recently…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177489,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[7644,1664,61,60,24566,46099,82,1976,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-177488","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-biology","9":"tag-conservation","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-marine","13":"tag-rare","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-whale","16":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177488","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=177488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}