Lisa Chilton, CEO of the National Biodiversity Network [NBN] writes about Thor, the walrus which recently paid a visit to the UK’s eastern shores, brought a smile to many faces and managed to disrupt new year celebrations.
Lisa begins:
“In this monthly (or thereabouts) Nature Positive blog, I’m going to share happy tales from the UK’s biodiversity community. Little snippets of joy to inspire, uplift and remind us of what it’s all about.
One of the stories that brought a smile to my face over the festive period was from Scarborough, where the arrival in the harbour of ‘Thor’, a young Walrus, became a huge attraction. Thousands of people flocked from near and far to get a glimpse of this rare visitor from the Arctic. A police cordon was set up on the harbourside to manage the crowds, and British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) maintained a round-the-clock watch. Though there were a few instances of bad behaviour, BDMLR reported that most people were “immeasurably respectful to our visitor” and expressed “their appreciation of Thor being protected”. With Thor still lounging on the seafront on New Year’s Eve, Scarborough Borough Council took the laudable decision to cancel the town’s fireworks display. Thor eventually slipped back into the sea, stopping for a rest in Blyth on the Northumberland coast, before heading off once more.
Thor’s brief visit brought happiness to countless people, but what do we know about Walruses in the UK? There are 31 records of Walrus sightings on the NBN Atlas, the UK’s largest publicly accessible database of wildlife records. The oldest record, shared with the NBN Atlas by the Bristol Regional Environmental Records Centre, dates from 1839. A juvenile Walrus was spotted in the Severn Estuary, where it swam upstream as far as Purton (close to what is now the Wildlife and Wetland Trust’s Slimbridge reserve). No cute name or happy ending for this one though, as it was promptly shot. In 1884, a Walrus was seen in Bute, and in 1954 one visited my local beach, Collieston, on the Aberdeenshire coast. Sightings really picked up in the 2000s, though, as you can see from the graph below. This may well reflect a growth …”
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There’s more; just click on the link above. And here is the link to further NBN blogs. There are a number of references to schools and education if you search for them.