Dilip Kuner
A WALRUS called Wally has been spotted swimming off the Spanish shore 2,000 miles from his home in the chillier climes of Greenland.
He is touring Europe after first being spotted in County Derry, Ireland in March ago, with experts believing he may have been stranded on a mini ice berg that floated south from his Arctic homeland.
Six days after first being seen he resurfaced in Wales where RSPCA officers were called out to check on him.
He was laying at the bottom of a cliff in Pembrokeshire (Wales) then took up residence on an RNLI lifeboat slipway in Tenby.
After being disturbed by sightseers on jet skis and in kayaks – and being shooed of the slipway by RNLI volunteers with airhorns and brooms – he moved on to Cornwall for a few days.
Since then, Wally has steadily moved south and was spotted in Les Sables d’Olonne in western France.
And now he has made his way through the Bay of Biscay and remerged in the mouth of the River Nervion in Bilbao.
Speaking to Radio 4’s Today programme in March, RSPCA animal rescue officer Ellie West described Wally’s case as ‘sad’.
She said: “It is a very unusual sight. It is quite a sad occurrence because we have to remember that this walrus is a very, very long way from where he should be.
“We’re talking about a wild animal that’s still very mobile. He’s very big, we’re talking about much bigger than our normal seals. This one, although he’s of a large size he is a bit underweight.”
READ MORE
Lost and severely malnourished Pacific Whale seen in waters off Mallorca
