Wandering walrus who fell asleep and had to go with the floe
A walrus has never been so lost. A juvenile Arctic walrus, the size of a cow, was spotted at the weekend resting on a rock at a secluded beauty spot on the Pembrokeshire coast.
Dubbed a little unkindly as "Wally the Walrus", the juvenile marine mammal is thought to have fallen asleep on an ice sheet in its native Greenland and drifted thousands of miles south into warmer waters.
The RSPCA officer dispatched to check on the walrus's well-being, described the sighting - with perhaps a little understatement - as "surreal".
The walrus - it's unclear if it's a male or female because no one would dare to get close enough to find out - was first spotted on Valentia Island off the Kerry coast of Ireland, a week ago.
It then swam a further 300 miles around the southern tip of Ireland before arriving at a secluded bay on the Pembrokeshire coast on Saturday.
Its ivory tusks have not fully grown out and are about three inches long, indicating a juvenile.
The RSPCA said that no walrus had ever been spotted so far south in British waters. A walrus was previously sighted in Scotland in May 2018 - the first time such a beast had been seen on the British mainland in 54 years.
Ellie West, the RSPCA animal rescue officer who raced to the scene, said: "People must have wondered if they had been hallucinating. But I'd seen the walrus had been in Ireland and I was half expecting its arrival."
Ms West added: "When I got there, it was lying on a flat rock in a secluded bay. I think it's most likely it is from Greenland stock although unfortunately they don't come with a birth certificate. In their natural habitat, walruses spend a lot of time asleep on the ice pack and as we all know the ice pack is breaking up. Somehow it has gone south and not stopped."
The RSPCA was called out after receiving calls from the public and from the Welsh Marine Life Rescue charity.
Cleopatra Brown, from Welsh Marine Life Rescue, said: "It was about the size of a cow. It was a whopper. I've seen them on telly and the news but it was huge."
She added: "I did a double take. You go around the coast path and go, 'woah'. It's not what you expect - it would be like seeing a penguin in your lounge."
An inspection at a distance suggested the walrus was underweight but not suffering any serious injury. At about 5pm on Saturday, Ms West and other onlookers watched the walrus swim out of the bay and out to sea. He has not been seen since and there are inevitably fears the walrus will struggle to survive in the warmer waters.
"Apart from it being very, very surreal and very, very unusual, I have to admit my main emotion is feeling quite sad that this poor guy has turned up over here on a very long journey far from home and an unknown future," said Ms West.
Video footage from the RSPCA showed the animal swimming off the flat rock and bathing in the choppy Welsh waters. The exact location is being kept secret to deter sightseers from flocking to the spot and causing the animal any further distress.
The walrus had caused quite a commotion when it arrived on Ireland's southern coast. A local marine biologist there described it as "extremely tired and emaciated".
Ms West said that despite being underweight, she thought the walrus might still weigh around 300kg.
Alan Houlihan, who was on a walk with his daughter when they stumbled across the walrus, told Irish radio last week: "It is the size of a cow or a bull in the water ... I hadn't seen anything like it before in Ireland. "
His daughter had given the walrus the name Isabelle or Cian, depending on gender. Unkinder souls on social media called him Wally. On Twitter the inevitable cries of "Where's Wally?" were being posted. There remains the possibility that the Arctic walrus is now en route to Cornwall.
