{"id":238132,"date":"2026-01-10T17:01:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T17:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/238132\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T17:01:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T17:01:10","slug":"rare-whale-first-photographed-in-donegal-officially-spotted-in-us-waters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/238132\/","title":{"rendered":"Rare whale first photographed in Donegal officially spotted in US waters"},"content":{"rendered":"

A rare whale that was first discovered off the coast of Donegal has been officially spotted 3,000 miles away off the coast of the US.<\/p>\n

The North Atlantic right whale is one of the rarest species in our oceans, and had not been spotted in over half a century anywhere \u2013 until it was seen off the coast of Sliabh Liag, in the Donegal Bay in 2024.<\/p>\n

That remarkable occasion was the first time it had been officially spotted since the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group\u2019s records began over 35 years ago.<\/p>\n

It was also the first time the North Atlantic right whale had been photographed in Irish waters in over 100 years.<\/p>\n

Now it has been confirmed that the very same whale has also been spotted off the coast of the United States, following a remarkable 3,000 mile journey.<\/p>\n

Last month, it was reported that scientists at the New England Aquarium had spotted a North Atlantic right whale off the coast of Massachusetts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now it has been confirmed by the US Center for Coastal Studies that the whale was the very same one which was captured in the Donegal Bay in 2024.<\/p>\n

Ryan Schosberg was one of the two members of the Center who were carrying out an aerial survey in the Massachusetts Bay when the whale was discovered in US waters.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbout four-and-a-half hours into the survey, we broke from our trackline to document a group of humpback whales about 23 nautical miles east of Boston,\u201d he told the Center.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile photographing the humpbacks, we were surprised to spot a lone right whale feeding at the surface nearby. We quickly diverted to photo-document the whale, our first right whale sighting of the season. The first sighting of the year is always exciting, but we didn\u2019t yet realize just how remarkable this one would turn out to be,\u201d said Schosberg.<\/p>\n

Scientist Lindsey Jones, who manages the New England Aquarium\u2019s North Atlantic Right Whale Catalog, then detailed the extraordinary discovery that it was indeed the same whale spotted off of Sliabh Liag.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile the photos from the 2024 Ireland sighting showed some unique features, we were unsure the quality of the photos would be sufficient to identify the whale in the future,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter a flurry of matching effort and emails, we were excited to discover the first ever photo-ID match between Ireland and the U.S. East Coast.\u201d<\/p>\n

You can read more about the remarkable discovery via the US Center for Coastal Studies\u2019 website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Rare whale first photographed in Donegal officially spotted in US waters was last modified: January 10th, 2026 by Daniel Brennan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A rare whale that was first discovered off the coast of Donegal has been officially spotted 3,000 miles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-238132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238132","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=238132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}