A species of whale, never before recorded in Ireland, washed up in Co Donegal last weekend, marking a “significant event” linked to climate change.
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 (NPWS), which reported the recovery on Friday.
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.
The carcass was found by a family walking on Sweet Nellie’s Beach on the Inishowen Peninsula last weekend.
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“Volunteers from the IWDG responded quickly and arrived at the scene to recover the carcass and collect skin samples,” a statement from the NPWS said on Friday.
IWDG and NPWS regional staff worked together to retrieve and transport the carcass to a laboratory in Cork for postmortem examination and tests.
Christopher O’Sullivan, Minister of State for Biodiversity, described the situation as “a significant event” likely caused by climate change.
“It is important that we try to find out more about why this species arrived on our coastline,” Mr O’Sullivan said.
“The 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.”
Dr Simon Berrow, chief executive of the IWDG, said the stranding was “remarkable”.
“As 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,” he said.
“However, 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.”
Dr Berrow said a single stranding “cannot display any trends, but it does show the importance of our long term monitoring schemes”.
Niall Ó Donnchú, director general of the NPWS, said the event was “extraordinary and unprecedented”.
As authorities await the results of tests, Mr Ó Donnchú said the NPWS “will continue to work closely with our partners to monitor Ireland’s marine environment and to better understand the impacts of climate and ecological change on vulnerable species”.
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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.
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.
“Narwhals 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,” a statement noted.
Narwhals are rarely recorded outside the Arctic – before last weekend’s discovery, the last narwhal stranding in Europe was when the body of a young male narwhal washed up in Belgium in 2016.
Before that record, two females stranded in the Thames Estuary in Kent, England, in 1949.
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.
