First sighting of blue whales in waters off Blaskets

THE first validated sightings of the world’s largest mammal have been made in Irish waters.

Sightings of blue whales — which can grow up to 110ft long and weigh nearly 200 tonnes — have been made near the Blasket Islands, off Co Kerry.

Pictures of the two leviathans were taken by Irish Whale & Dolphin Group member Ivan O’Kelly, who was onboard a Kerry Marine Tours boat, which had been tracking fin whales 97km north-west of the Blasket Islands.

The blue whales were spotted among a pod of fin whales last Monday.

One of the whales surfaced very close to the boat.

“I can tell you it was fairly magical. It was very, very impressive.

“They are very fast swimming, considering their size,” Mr O’Kelly said.

He took about 50 pictures of the creatures and sent them to group sightings coordinator, Padraig Whooley, who later confirmed they were blue whales.

Mr Whooley said there have been only two stranding records of blue whales on the Irish coast.

“Even with today’s relatively high level of off-shore cetacean survey activity by researchers and marine mammal observer alike, sightings... remain extremely rare. This reflects both their preference for off-shore shelf edge waters and their globally low numbers, as a result of overexploitation by commercial whale fisheries,” he said.

Acoustic monitoring studies in the North Atlantic, carried out by Chris Clarke of Cornell University in America, have indicated that upwards of 50 blue whales migrate through Irish offshore waters every year.

“Hopefully this sighting will herald the beginning of a new era, in which blue whales will continue to recover and begin to visit our in-shore waters, in the same way as their smaller cousins, the fin and humpback whales,” Mr Whooley said.