{"id":809536,"date":"2026-10-21T09:36:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T09:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/809536\/"},"modified":"2026-10-21T09:36:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T09:36:10","slug":"nowhere-left-to-go-beluga-whale-off-ireland-amid-growing-sightings-of-arctic-species-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/809536\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Nowhere left to go\u2019: Beluga whale off Ireland amid growing sightings of Arctic species \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A beluga whale, a species that normally lives in the freezing waters of the Arctic and sub-Arctic, was spotted in Donegal<\/a> Bay on Saturday.<\/p>\n

P\u00e1draig Whooley, sightings officer with the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (IWDG), said \u201cour latitudes are not the natural home for beluga whales\u201d.<\/p>\n

On October 17th, Sebastian Szumla\u0144ski was at Fintra in Donegal Bay, where he recorded drone footage of the whale that was later shared with the IWDG.<\/p>\n

There have been at least four previous reported sightings of Beluga whales around the Irish coast, with the first known dating back to 1948 off Clare Island in Co Mayo.<\/p>\n

The video from Donegal Bay was the IWDG\u2019s second ever validated record; the first was off Dunseverick, Co Antrim, in 2015.<\/p>\n

However, Whooley said the whale\u2019s presence did not mean it was \u201ctrying to make Ireland its home\u201d. He said the beluga was an adult, which was known because the whales were \u201cborn quite dark and they pale with age\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said the whale spotted in Donegal Bay was \u201cabsolutely brilliant white\u201d.<\/p>\n

Adult belugas can reach up to 5m in length. Whooley said the one spotted looked to be 4m-4\u00bdm long.<\/p>\n

He said many such whales had scars from polar-bear attacks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is mad to think that now we have a species of whale in Irish waters that is the food of polar bears,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is just a little bit of a trend that we\u2019re beginning to see that we are writing more and more of these articles about these Arctic animals that are turning up in Irish waters. <\/p>\n

Though \u201cstill very infrequent\u201d, Whooley said there were a lot of sightings of the bowhead whale, the walrus, the narwhal and the belugas.<\/p>\n

\u201cSightings of these animals are, you know, becoming more frequent. We\u2019re seeing them more frequently … the interval gap is narrowing,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere are big changes out there … we\u2019re losing some species that perhaps used to be more common. We\u2019re also starting to see more species that we almost never saw before. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very dynamic out there. Things are changing and it\u2019s the rapid rate with which things are changing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beluga whales belong to the same family as narwhals. In 2025, a juvenile, female narwhal became stranded on Sweet Nellies Beach, north of Greencastle on the Inishowen Peninsula in Co Donegal. <\/p>\n

Whooley said the beluga whale sighting was \u201ccoinciding with really bad weather\u201d, citing Storm Austen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe big storm won\u2019t make any difference to the whale but it\u2019ll impact our ability to actually observe the animal and to try and monitor it from the shoreline.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whooley said the nearest population of Arctic belugas was probably Svarlbard, a northern Norwegian territory \u2013 all marine species \u201care on the move\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe trend is that everything is pushing farther and farther north because everything is looking for cooler water because most fish have a preference for cool water,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo when the fish are tracking north and I\u2019m talking about, you know, species like mackerel and herring and stuff like that, that are really important for whales, as they\u2019re tracking north, the predators are following after them. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut what do you do when you live on the top of the world? You can\u2019t go north. There is no north. When you live in the North Pole already, there is nowhere left for you to go. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018A beautiful animal\u2019: Shark fishing needs more regulation and training, expert saysOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only place for you to go, if your habitat breaks down, is to drop south and that is why we are starting to see more of these Arctic species in warmer waters because there is literally nowhere left for them to go and that is a problem of their geography.\u201d <\/p>\n

[\u00a0What changes in butterfly populations tell us about climate change in IrelandOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Whooley asked members of the public who had seen any species of whale or dolphin to report their sightings to the IWDG here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A beluga whale, a species that normally lives in the freezing waters of the Arctic and sub-Arctic, was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":809537,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[7952,556,60298,1397,90,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-809536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-biodiversity","tag-climate-change","tag-donegal","tag-environment","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=809536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809536\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/809537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=809536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=809536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=809536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}