Arctic Walrus Dozed Off on an Iceberg, Wakes up in Ireland!

A walrus sighted on an Irish beach, on the 14th of March  may have floated there from the Arctic Circle after dropping numbly on an iceberg.

The young girl named Muireann is 5 years old, showed the walrus to her dad, Alan Houlihan, as they strolled on County Kerry's Valentia Island. Alan explained that he initially imagined it was a seal and then he noticed the tucks, the walrus hopped up on the rocks and it was enormous.  The walrus was around the size of a cow or bull, quite likely in size.

(Photo : Rutpratheep Nilpe)

The Arctic Circle

A lot of Odobenus rosmarus (walruses) live close to the Arctic Circle, where they prey on shellfish in deep water and clamber onto the beaches and icebergs to rest. The enormous creatures hardly crop up around the Irish shoreline. The earliest documented walrus spotting there happened in 1897, but no other walruses were discovered until the 1980s, the Irish public service broadcaster RTÉ announced. Ever since fewer than two dozen more walruses have been sighted in Ireland.

RTÉ announced that the cleaned-up walrus discovered on Valentia Island is believed to be relatively young, because of the length of the animal's tusks. How vast is the walrus?
Fully-evolved walruses can develop tusks as long as 1 meter (3.3 feet), while the newly spotted walrus's tusks were around 30 centimeters long (12 inches). The walrus's body was assessed from snout to tail to be over 2 meters (6 feet).

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Heart of the Atlantic 

A marine biologist with the Dingle Oceanworld Aquarium Kevin Flannery said to The Independent: how does a juvenile walrus wind up in County Kerry? "I would suggest what occurred is, he dozed off on an iceberg and was carried off, and he was far too gone, out in the heart of the Atlantic or someplace like that, down off Greenland probably."

Flannery explained that "he might also be an island-jumping and left to Iceland on to Shetland, but that's uncertain. He also suggest that the walrus came in out of the Atlantic and after journeying thousands of miles, the walrus might probably be hungry and exhausted."

Wishfully, "he will obtain several scallops around Valentia," Flannery further disclosed, if he recovers his strength, luckily, he will find his way back up to the Arctic. The numb walrus still gave him and his daughter "a bit of an exhibition" when they sighted it, according to the irish examiner. He was straddling on the rock then, sort of posing; at one phase there, he spat up a fin, and it appeared as if he was giving us all the birdie, he explained.

(Photo : Guillaume Falco)

Threat from Shipping Routes and Climate Change 

There are around 20,000 walruses in the North Atlantic, but in the whole world they are confronting an increasing threat from shipping routes and climate change. These problems had taken the lives of thousands of mammals in the Pacific Ocean, nearby north-eastern Russia, and Alaska.

Though in the Atlantic, walruses appear more able to adapt to a changing climate because feeding turfs are close to shore and they lay in smaller factions 

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