Before you ask; No, this is not an April Fools prank. While most IWDG personnel were in Galway at ECS during the week, a possible new species was recorded for Irish waters.
The stranded cetacean was seen on Sunday 25th by Max Halliday near the Rock shop in Liscannor, and was reported to IWDG by phone on Mon. 26th March. Alas, the message was only picked up by us on our return from the conference on Fri. 30th.
The description as provided to us was of a cetacean that was larger than a dolphin at c15ft, with no dorsal fin, but most interestingly with a spiral tusk, about the length of a hurley, protruding from its head. Of course the first question in this situation is...do you have any photos? and of course the answer was...NO!
But Max was pretty sure that this observation was not a run of the mill event and went home and looked up some books and the more he looked the more confident he became that what he saw was indeed a Narwhal. So we immediately made phone calls and within the hour Simon Berrow & Conor Ryan, IWDG and Joanne O Brien, GMIT and others were onsite.
Frustratingly, the carcass was missing, but they found where it had been and the grease stain indeed suggested an animal larger than a bottlenose dolphin. So the big question is where are the remains? Given the calm seas of the past week, it is unlikely that it was washed back out to sea, and so perhaps a member of the public found it, and realising its significance, removed it.
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