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An orca washed up on a Waterford beach yesterday

It is the first since 2010.

whale Shauna Burke / Instagram Shauna Burke / Instagram / Instagram

A FIVE-METRE long female orca was found on a beach at Saleen, near Tramore, County Waterford yesterday.

Locals came across the animal which the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group thinks may have died from malnourishment.

This is the 15th stranding of an orca on the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group’s IDGW cetacean strandings database and the first since October 2010 in Mayo.

A study on the animal will be carried out tomorrow by a team from IWDG and GMIT and it is hoped that the skeleton will be preserved to be put on display locally.

IDGW recorded at least 32 cetacean strandings in January. They say that “strong westerly winds are likely to be pushing dead floating animals ashore whether those animals have died from natural causes or not”.

 

Dr Simon Berrow, who will lead the GMIT team, told TheJournal.ie that the orca was probably an older female who will now be studied.

“It’s a rare chance to see this species up close. We can judge by its teeth that it’s probably an old female.

“We don’t have an official post-mortem system, so what we do is we try and take samples and learn about diet, reproduction and contamination levels.

Orca Michelle Dooley Michelle Dooley

“The corpse has been taken up the beach to keep it safe and the Coast Guard is keeping an eye on it.

“People sometimes try to come and take souvenirs. Managing people is the most difficult thing.”

Read: Move over Fungi! Dolphins filmed swimming off the Donegal coast

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66 Comments
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    Mute dublinlad72
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    Oct 29th 2012, 2:38 PM

    Sandy sounds increasingly like my wife when she’s on the warpath!

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    Mute Stephen murphy
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    Oct 29th 2012, 2:41 PM

    It must get very windy in your house, does she blow hot or cold air?

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    Mute SeanR
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    Oct 29th 2012, 2:41 PM

    Dept of Foreign Affairs is kind of late to the party with that advice. The east coast airports are closed. People couldn’t travel even of they wanted to.

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    Mute Declan Noonan
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    Oct 29th 2012, 2:48 PM

    The first paragraph does not make sense because you won’t be able to travel to the US. All flights are cancelled to the north east.

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    Mute vv7k7Z3c
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    Oct 29th 2012, 3:06 PM

    To be fair, the advice is also intended for people who aren’t necessarily travelling directly from Ireland.

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    Mute Declan Noonan
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    Oct 29th 2012, 4:40 PM

    Gavan, true but you can’t travel without the plane.

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    Mute vv7k7Z3c
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    Oct 29th 2012, 7:53 PM

    No, but like I said, if you’re not currently in Ireland and happened to be, say, elsewhere in the USA, perhaps you were intending to drive to the north-east?

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    Mute Damocles
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    Oct 29th 2012, 3:40 PM

    People need to be told this? Anyone likely to look to see probably already has a fair idea of what’s going on there,

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    Mute Biggins31
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    Oct 29th 2012, 6:10 PM

    You’d be surprised (maybe not) at the stupidity of some people still.
    Some still have to be told these things sadly.

    Like the America packets of peanuts that has on the packets “Warning: Contains nuts” Loads of similar examples available).
    Silly to state these things but sadly have to still be done because people can be stupid.

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