A large bottlenose whale was stranded and died yesterday on the Dingle peninsula.
The 20ft, 10-tonne mature northern bottlenose - the same species which got caught in the Thames in London recently - was spotted by beach users and surfers yesterday at Fermoyle Strand near Castlegregory.
This is directly north of Inch Strand where an immature pilot whale was successfully re-floated on Saturday.
Kevin Flannery of the Department of the Marine in Dingle, and an expert in rare marine species, said the animal, a female, was dying when he saw it around lunchtime.
He said Brandon Bay was famous for its surf and that she might well have come in on the surf while chasing food.
The whale seemed in perfect health but it would have been very difficult to re-float such a big animal, Mr Flannery said.
Members of the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group took samples of tissue yesterday. Dr Simon Berrow of the group said a dolphin which died in Cork Harbour at the weekend, the pilot and this bottlenose were all squid-eating species and he was exploring a theory that all were in pursuit of their favourite food.
Northern bottlenoses tended to strand, he added. The group was also going to the scene of a reported stranded dolphin near Loop Head last night.
The northern bottlenose, a beaked whale, is found in waters from Nova Scotia to Norway and south as far as Rhode Island. It was severely hunted off the Irish and other coasts until the mid 1970s.