People should watch from a distance but not approach an Arctic walrus that has arrived off west Cork in the past few days, a zoologist has said.
Prof Emer Rogan from University College Cork said the animal, nicknamed Wally, appeared not yet to be fully grown.
While walruses are not inherently dangerous, this specimen was still a large animal which could hurt someone if they went too close, she told The Irish Times.
“Males tend to be much bigger but it’s difficult to say whether this animal is a male or a female – what’s clear is that its tusks are still relatively short, suggesting that it is not fully grown, but it still looks a large animal and people need to respect it and give it the space it needs.”
Walruses live in large groups of up to several hundred and are highly gregarious, hauling out on rocks on islands or ice to rest with animals often sleeping or resting 18 or 20 hours a day, thus explaining why this animal has taken to resting on rocks or in boats off the Irish coast.
Prof Rogan said the walrus had first been spotted resting on a rock on Valentia Island in Co Kerry in March and was later spotted in Wales before resurfacing when it hauled itself into a boat off Ardmore in Co Waterford last week. Most recently, it appeared in West Cork.
“It’s hard to know what that animal is doing here. It’s well out of its range and it’s also by itself, which is a bit unusual,” said Prof Rogan.
The most recent series of sightings of the walrus began on Sunday when it was spotted in Courtmacsherry in west Cork.
Later a five-metre boat went missing from its mooring in Dunnycove on the western side of Clonakilty Bay, only for locals to find it had it sunk at the mooring.
Local boat owners began taking their boats from the water but the animal remained in the area, attracting huge crowds, with hundreds of people thronging the narrow laneways around Ardfield on the western side of Clonakilty Bay.
