Beluga whale spotted off the coast of Northern Ireland (video)
A beluga whale has been spotted in Northern Ireland for the first time on record.
The highly elusive whale was sighted off the County Antrim coast near Dunseverick, 2,000 miles from its Arctic home in the Barents Sea, from the island archipelago of Svalbard eastwards.
See also: Humpback whale swims with paddle boarder in Ireland
Photographer Gordon Watson, from Ballycastle, managed to capture a shot of the beautiful animal.
He had been in the area to photograph jellyfish, but got a lot more than he bargained for.
The Sea Watch Foundation says it is the first ever sighting of a beluga whale in Northern Ireland, and in the last 100 years there have been only 17 records before this one in all of Britain and Ireland (10 in the last thirty years). There are just two records from the Republic of Ireland – one off Clare Island, Co Mayo in 1948 and another at Cobh, Co Cork in 1988.
Dr Peter Evans, director of theSea Watch Foundation, said the reason the animal had strayed so far from its usual habitat could be down to a fall in sea temperatures.
Speaking to the BBC, he said: "A beluga whale is extremely unusual.
"It's the first record that we know for Northern Ireland and in fact there's only been about a dozen in 50 years for the whole of Britain and Ireland.
"On the whole, over the last sort of 10 years, certainly the sea temperatures have been generally warming, but at the same time there have been a number of anomalies where you've got actually significantly cooler waters and that seems to be the case here."
According to the Belfast Telegraph, Mr Evans added: "This is not the first Arctic species to be seen in Britain this year.
"Back in February, the first European sighting of a bowhead whale was captured on a smartphone around the Isles of Scilly. In that instance, it was thought that the fragmentation of floating ice may have resulted in whales typically associated with pack ice straying much further south.
"Whether the same has occurred in the case of this beluga is not clear, but sea temperatures have been unusually low this summer."
The beluga whale, or white whale, is an Arctic and sub-Arctic cetacean. It is one of two members of the family Monodontidae, along with the narwhal.
It is adapted to life in the Arctic, so has anatomical and physiological characteristics that differentiate it from other cetaceans, including its all-white colour and the absence of a dorsal fin.
The majority of belugas live in the Arctic and the seas and coasts around North America, Russia and Greenland; their worldwide population is thought to number around 150,000.
Males can grow up to 5.5m (18ft) long and weigh up to 1,600kg (3,500lb).
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