Beluga whale filmed off Donegal in rare Arctic visit that scientists link to a warming ocean

A whale that normally spends its life among the ice floes of the high Arctic has been filmed swimming off the coast of County Donegal, thousands of kilometers south of where it belongs. The brilliant white adult beluga was captured on drone footage in Donegal Bay on Saturday, October 17, and has since been confirmed by the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group.

Sebastian Szumlański was out with his family at Fintra when he spotted what he first took to be a pale dolphin. He launched his drone and later showed the footage to a friend, who passed it to the IWDG, whose experts confirmed the species. The only previous validated record in the group's 35-year history was off Dunseverick in County Antrim in 2015.

Declan Kilgannon of the Donegal Bay Conservation Trust told RTÉ News the find showed the value of citizen science. He called it a "phenomenal sighting" and said it had given the trust a mission to protect what lives in the bay.

Pádraig Whooley, sightings officer with the IWDG, told The Irish Times that Irish latitudes are not the natural home of beluga whales. He said the animal was clearly an adult, because belugas are born dark and pale with age, and this one was, in his words, "absolutely brilliant white." He put its length at between four and four and a half meters.

Where belugas are supposed to live

Belugas are creatures of the Arctic and sub-Arctic. According to NOAA Fisheries, they range across the Arctic Ocean and its neighboring seas, off Alaska, Russia, Canada, Greenland, and northern Norway, swimming among ice floes where the water sits near freezing. They grow to around 16 feet and can live up to 90 years.

Almost everything about the animal is built for cold. Blubber accounts for up to 40 percent of its body weight, and it has no dorsal fin, only a tough ridge along its back that lets it move beneath floating ice. Sailors once nicknamed belugas the canaries of the sea for the whistles, squeals, and chirps they use to navigate and hunt.

Whooley said the nearest Arctic beluga population to Ireland is probably around Svalbard in northern Norway. He also noted that many belugas carry scars from polar bear attacks, adding that it is remarkable to now have a whale in Irish waters that polar bears feed on.

A pattern, not a one-off

Whooley told The Irish Times that sightings of the bowhead whale, the walrus, the narwhal, and the beluga remain very infrequent, but the gap between them is narrowing. Some species once more common are disappearing, he said, while others almost never recorded here are starting to appear.

His explanation turns on food. As seas warm, fish such as mackerel and herring track north toward cooler water, and the predators that depend on them follow. The problem, Whooley said, is that animals already at the top of the world have no further north to go, so when their habitat breaks down, the only direction left is south.

The backdrop is a measurably hotter ocean around Ireland. Marine Institute analysis reported last month found waters off the south coast had been in a marine heatwave for more than nine weeks, with Celtic Sea temperatures peaking at 3.95 degrees above normal on August 13. It was the third such event of 2026 and beat a 61-day record set by a winter heatwave earlier in the year. Institute scientists report a striking rise in the frequency and intensity of such events.

Other cold-water visitors

The beluga joins a short but growing list. In November 2025, a young female narwhal measuring 2.42 meters washed up on Sweet Nellies Beach near Greencastle on the Inishowen Peninsula, the first record of the species in Ireland. IWDG chief executive Dr Simon Berrow called the stranding remarkable and linked it to a northward movement of whales and dolphins as waters warm.

In May 2016, a juvenile bowhead whale was photographed at the mouth of Carlingford Lough, another species never previously recorded here. And in 2021, a young walrus nicknamed Wally hauled out on Valentia Island in Co. Kerry before touring Wales, France, and Spain and eventually reaching Iceland on his way home.

Whooley said the beluga is unlikely to settle here, and that weather from Storm Austen will make it harder to monitor from shore. The IWDG is asking anyone who sees a whale or dolphin to report it through its website.