Narwhal recently found in Ireland suggests they’re moving into new areas, some experts say
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‘It’s just mad to know how it ended up there, and why,’ says Niamh Gavin, who found the animal on a beach
Niamh Gavin and her four kids usually walk their dogs on Sweet Nellie’s Beach in Greencastle in the Irish county of Donegal.
Most of the time it’s an uneventful outing, but last month they came across something unusual. Gavin’s son thought at first it was a seal.
“Even from a distance, I thought, ‘that’s a large seal,’” Gavin said.
It turned out to be a female narwhal.
Ireland’s National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) recovered the animal a day later, and, along with scientists from the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (IWDG), conducted a post-mortem examination of the animal.
Simon Berrow of the IWDG, an advocacy group, says it appears the animal may have died after it became stranded on shore.
“She wasn’t in very good condition, but she wasn’t emaciated. So maybe she was diseased and that ultimately led to her live stranding, and then the live stranding killed her,” Berrow said.
Regardless of what caused the narwhal’s death, Gavin was shocked to see it on an Irish beach.
“It’s just mad to know how it ended up there, and why,” she said.
Whales ‘triggers of wider changes in our marine environment,’ advocate says
Narwhals typically inhabit Arctic waters, though some have reportedly been seen elsewhere in Europe, including in Belgium in 2016 when a dead male narwhal washed up on the shore of a river.
Berrow believes the animal found last month in Ireland could indicate that narwhals may be moving into new areas. That’s something the IWDG has seen with other species it tracks.
Berrow says that another Arctic marine mammal — a bowhead whale — was also seen northeast of Ireland in 2016.
“I think that is really scary because when we look at whales and dolphins, they are triggers of wider changes in our marine environment,” he said.
“It’s important to monitor them because they will probably give us insights into things that are happening.”
Moses Koonoo, a hunter from Arctic Bay, Nunavut, says he’s not surprised a narwhal made its way to Ireland because the animals can travel long distances. He also believes it’s related to climate change.
“It’s [because] of global warming that they travel to different places,” said Koonoo.
However, Marianne Marcoux, a researcher with Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), says the narwhal found in Ireland is “not too much of a panic.”
“They’ve been found before to go outside their normal range,” said Marcoux.
Marcoux points to narwhals that have been found in the St. Lawrence River, from 2016 to 2023.
till, one Irish cabinet minister says the discovery last month is a significant event.
Christopher O’Sullivan, Ireland’s minister for nature, heritage and biodiversity, called it “a stark reminder of the vulnerability of wildlife in the face of a changing climate, and the need to protect them.”
As for Niamh Gavin, she says her kids are ready for the next strange visitor to their favourite beach.
“We go to that beach regularly, but every time we go, they’re currently like the narwhal hunters,” Gavin said, jokingly.
“They think they are going to find live narwhals living in the sea.”
Related stories from around the North:
Canada: Questions raised as two species of Arctic seal are spotted in southern Ireland, Eye on the Arctic
Iceland: Iceland sees security risk, existential threat in Atlantic Ocean current’s possible collapse, Reuters
Norway: Weather above normal for 18 consecutive months, The Independent Barents Observer
Russia: New NOAA report finds vast Siberian wildfires linked to Arctic warming, The Associated Press
Sweden: Proposal—Sweden’s 2030 climate targets to remain unchanged, Radio Sweden
United States: How the Arctic has been ‘pushed & triggered’ into climate extremes: paper, Eye on the Arctic
