Ever been so tired you fell asleep somewhere in public? Or worse, woke up in the wrong city having taken a danger snooze on a train? If so, you might have some sympathy for a walrus that may have kipped its way across the Atlantic and found itself in Ireland.
According to a report from the Irish Examiner, the out-of-place marine mammal was spotted by local man Alan Houlihan and his 5-year-old daughter Muireann who were walking along Glanleam Beach on Kerry island, Ireland. You needn’t be from the area to appreciate that walruses aren’t a common sighting here, given they live in the Arctic.
Jennie O'Sullivan, a journalist from the Irish news company RTÉ, tweeted that though the sighting is an extremely rare one, it’s not the first of its kind with the first official walrus sighting in the region dating back to 1897, while a map from Biodiversity Ireland shows 11 data points representing walrus (Odobenus rosmarus) sightings. Exactly how many have found their way to the island is difficult to confirm as from a distance they could easily be confused for seals, which are more common in the coastal waters surrounding Ireland.
“Myself and my daughter were out walking on the beach down near the lighthouse,” said Houlihan to the Irish Examiner. “He breached out of the water onto the rocks and gave us a bit of a show… I thought it was a seal at first and then we saw the tusks. He kind of jumped up on the rocks. He was massive. He was about the size of a bull or a cow, pretty similar in size, he’s big, big.”
Adult walruses can grow up to 3.5 meters (11.8 feet) and weigh up to 1.5 tons, about that of a small car.
One theory as to how the big marine mammal made the enormous journey to Ireland was put forward by marine biologist Kevin Flannery in an interview with the Irish Examiner. Flannery believes the Arctic animal may have drifted off atop an iceberg that broke off and floated beyond the point of no return, taking its unsuspecting passenger with it. Such an epic migration could suggest why the animal appears to be very exhausted. At time of writing, there are no official reports that aid can be given to the walrus, an option complicated by the fact that wildlife authorities in the area aren’t accustomed to transferring and treating nomadic walruses.
Birder and mammal watcher Dave Pullan put forward an alternative theory on Twitter, suggesting that the walrus might be the same individual that recently landed in Denmark. However, a report from Nord News says the walrus spotted there was young, weighing perhaps 300-400 kilograms.
Another unusual specimen washed ashore in Wales earlier this year, as the Marine Environmental Monitoring (MEM) team were called out to investigate a “very large blob” that washed up on a remote beach. At first it was suspected to be a whale, but further analyses revealed it was in fact a basking shark, not a rare ocean visitor but one that hardly ever washes up on beaches.
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