A snooze gone awry resulted in an extremely uncommon sighting.
Have you ever fallen asleep on a train or bus and completely missed your stop? You are not by yourself.
A walrus was observed on the western coast of Ireland in March 2021. This is a really unusual sight, so how did it get there?
Experts believe the walrus fell asleep on an iceberg in the Arctic and floated all the way to Ireland while sleeping!
“I’d assume he fell asleep on an iceberg and wandered off, and then he was gone too far, out into the mid-Atlantic or somewhere like that down off Greenland potentially,” Kevin Flannery, director of Oceanworld Aquarium in Dingle, Co. Kerry, told the Irish Independent.
“That’s what generally occurs… they fall asleep on an iceberg and are dragged away from the Arctic.”
Alan Houlihan, a local, and his 5-year-old daughter, Muireann, were the first to spot the animal.
“At first, I assumed it was a seal, but then we saw the tusks.” He sort of leapt up on the rocks.”
“He was huge. “He’s the size of a bull or a cow, quite similar in size, he’s large, big,” Houlihan remarked.
“He was very next to us, less than 50 meters away. He went aside for a bit, then returned and went back to the rocks.”
Although the animal is completely lovely, Flannery believes it is likely to be fatigued and hungry after such a long voyage.
The public was warned to give the animal lots of space if they came across it.
“Hopefully he’ll catch a few scallops around Valentia.” But right now, he just wants to rest. “He’s come from the North Pole, possibly off the coast of Greenland,” Flanner explained.
“He may have gone island-hopping and gone to Iceland and then to Shetland, but that’s improbable.” I’d assume he arrived from the Atlantic. It’s tens of thousands of miles distant. If he regains his strength, he should be able to make his way back up.”