Nearly 100 humpback whales have been individually identified in Irish waters over the past 20 years – and almost all are return visitors.
The giants of the sea are consistently returning to rich Atlantic feeding grounds off our west and south coasts, making it one of the world’s hotspots for the mammals.
New figures from the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group show their favourite haunts are off the Kerry coast, with nearly half of all sightings in the Kingdom at 46% while Cork accounted for 42% of appearances.
Wexford, Waterford, Galway and Clare are also among the humpback playgrounds while Dublin and Down, on the Irish Sea coast, also have rare encounters.
The data shows the average residency length for the returning gigantic whales is six weeks - but many stay for over three months.
Dr Simon Berrow, CEO of the IWDG, who has been monitoring the local whale populations for two decades, said the remarkable bank of information from nearly 600 photo identification shots has mostly been gathered by a network of volunteers.
“We have 97 individual humpback whales in our catalogue. Each year we’ve seen 93% of the whales before.
“Some of the figures are amazing, the longest number of days between first and last being seen is 195 days and we’ve recorded a residency time of more than 100 days on 17 occasions.
“For someone to go out and find the whale, photograph the whale, recognise the whale and then go out and do it again a second or third time in the same season and give the information to us, is phenomenal.”
Dr Berrow said the work of the IWDG charity, who lost their Ryanair sponsorship before the pandemic, is more important than ever.
He said: “With state and personal resources never more under pressure following the current pandemic, it’s even more important that businesses and industry support important research that draws both knowledge and inspiration from our natural environment.”
Just last year, the group discovered that two humpback whales snapped 20 years ago off the coast of Cork were spotted back together near the Blasket Islands.
