Wild Walrus Takes A Summer Vacation Across Europe | The Dodo Comeback Kids

oh my god there's a walrus trying to board my yacht he's on our diving platform again how do i get him to stop because he might capsize us he's big it's not every day that you see a walrus obsessed with climbing on people's boats [Music] wally is an atlantic walrus who in 2021 went for a six-month vacation across western europe [Music] the 14th of march was when he was first spotted in an island we were just absolutely floored because we've never seen a walrus here before [Music] as one of the main marine minimal rescues in ireland we knew we had to get involved we've got our camera ready and we'll hopefully be able to find him and make sure he's doing okay so we've just pulled up but we heard people saying wally wally wally and there he is it was thrilling but also it was very sad because he's not supposed to be here he's just hanging out enjoying the sunshine there's quite a few people around i think everyone was just fascinated it was a blessing and a curse because he didn't understand it was very dangerous to be near us he was putting himself in danger's way by attracting these crowds and my biggest concern for him is that he wasn't going to be able to find a safe place to rest he would just continuously get more and more exhausted and then he wouldn't be able to survive turned around that's when we just decided the best thing that we could do was to foster a safe space wherever he showed up and then five days later he was spotted in wales he's a giant giant baby basically so he was just exploring he was figuring out his surroundings he was curious he was learning british divers marine life rescue did a lot of public engagement [Music] he had no fear of people coming up close to him or coming in amongst people and hauling out in harbours so there was a lot of effort that went into getting out messaging and how we needed to act around him to keep him safe then he was spotted in cornwall for just one day then we didn't hear from him again until he turned up in the rochelle towards the south side of france he just kept going further south [Music] and then he shocked us all by showing up in bilboa spain we became really concerned just seems like he just continuously was going in the wrong direction [Music] soon he was probably looking for other walruses he was probably wondering where they all were the world was watching to see how far is this force going to go thankfully and that's as far south as he made it during his adventure around western europe nobody knew where he was for about two weeks until the 17th of june that's when he showed up in the isles of stilling he became much more focused on hauling out on boats one of the theories that we came up with is of course up in the arctic they would haul out on floating ice [Music] because he has no concept of money probably something he would never realize is the upset he would cause people by damaging their property once he started sinking boats we became increasingly concerned that someone would harm him and they basically came up with the idea of situating a pontoon specifically for him so that would keep property safe which indirectly will keep him safe [Music] sort of got into a routine after we were able to provide him with his floating bed [Music] he did spend a lot of time resting and meant that all of the nutrients that he acquired from those feeding expeditions was able to be put on as blubber i think maybe he anticipated he was going to have a long swim back he moved on and ended up the island from the second of august he took off after a few days and when we didn't see him again we thought that the worst had happened because a storm came in and we were very worried that he was lost somewhere in the middle of the atlantic [Music] after wally had been missing the second walrus was spotted in europe so it turns out she's actually been cruising around european waters since 2019 and what really played out with freya was similar to wally walruses are very very social creatures and so she was being conditioned to approach humans and then we were notified again that a walrus had been spotted in iceland there were questions around whether this was a third horse that turned up in iceland or if it was wally or potentially freya but fortunately we had quite a lot of really good photos of wally on both of his front flippers there were some quite distinctively shaped scars we were able to match those very unique scar patterns to wally and that's how we knew it was definitely him i just absolutely jumped for joy the fact that it did end up with him back in iceland was best case scenario he did end up going in the right direction and hopefully now he's somewhere back in the arctic amongst other walruses doing normal walrus things wally is absolutely a success story he beat all the odds by surviving that journey around european waters in a completely non-native habitat to himself but the same cannot be said for freyja freya was never able to make her way back home and just like wally freya was deprived of her own kind so she did settle for the next best thing which would be human activities but she did not realize just how dangerous we are we at british divers marine life rescue had contact with a wildlife welfare organisation in norway who are asking for advice which we responded to with the case study of wally we were absolutely devastated to learn that the norwegian directorate of fisheries decided to euthanize freyja it was reportedly to prevent potential injuries to members of the public who refused and maintain a safe distance from her it feels like a lot more could have been done because some of the pictures show large crowds of people almost within touching distance of her and clearly there needed to be a lot more management of people this was avoidable and this was unnecessary and we really hope that this does not set a precedence for how these wild animals should be treated in the future there will be more cases like wally and freya because as sea ice continues to melt they're going to run out of habitat so they're going to have to explore new areas which will bring them into contact with humans so it is our responsibility to not only protect their native habitat but to also treat them with respect when they do come within our range so that they have the hope of returning to their normal habitat like wally did [Music] you

Channel: The Dodo

Views: 2,015,669

Keywords: animal video, animals, the dodo, Animal Rescue, dodo, cute animals, pets, wildlife, pet videos, wildlife videos, animals the dodo, the dodo animals, rescuing animals

Id: q_d2g1BMNZE

Length: 8min 33sec (513 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 03 2022