IWDG confirms death of sperm whale

A sperm whale spotted in the Waterford Estuary in late March died on Wednesday morning close to the Isle of Bute in Scotland, according to the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (IWDG).

The whale’s appearance in Waterford on 25 March coastline was just the 27th such sighting of the species along the Irish coastline.

The IWDG said, “We’ve just received the word from Dan Jarvis of British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) that the whale died. A predictable end to a whale that was in a difficult situation for at least two weeks.”

“It’s remarkable given the lack of food or suitable prey for this apex predator in the shallow waters of the Celtic Sea, Irish Sea and the North channel, that it somehow managed to travel so far and survive as long as it did. Its journey and suffering are now over,” added the spokesperson.

Sperm whale sightings are usually reported well offshore of the west and south of Ireland.

Since the IWDG was established almost 35 years ago, the Group has documented 5,856 sightings of the minke, 2,111 sightings of Ireland’s largest and fastest coastal whale, the mighty fin whale, and 1,705 records the humpback.

The sperm whale, the largest of the odontocetes or toothed whales, in sharp contrast isn’t so much a rare species, rather they are rarely seen, reflecting their habitat preference for deep canyon systems off the Continental Shelf Edge.

n August 2011, a sperm whale became stranded on the Cunningar Spit near Dungarvan, County Waterford, where it finally died the following day.