Damien Enright: The changing habitat of Wally the Walrus and his brethren

The arrival of a giant walrus in Cork and Kerry has fired a curiosity around the 'horse-whales'

A giant walrus arrived on a rock on Valenta Island in South Kerry. Picture: Alan Houlihan

I wrote about walruses last week, the Walrus Deterrent Device invented by a West Cork illustrator of nature books. His device seemed cheaper to build, more practical and more environmentally friendly than strategies put in place elsewhere.

Simple curiosity sent me – figuratively – looking at these wondrous creatures in their native habitat, the Arctic seas. Walruses are the only living representatives of the family Odobenidae which, with a Pacific branch living between Russia and Alaska, an Atlantic branch between Canada and Greenland, and a Laptev Sea branch, north of Siberia, almost encircles the globe.