Wave of sightings gives Dingle hope Fungie still lives in neighbourhood
Ralph Riegel joins the search for the dolphin that has captured hearts over nearly 40 years
FOUR possible sightings of Fungie the missing dolphin are being followed up in Kerry. However, Dingle Ocean World director Kevin Flannery said that while the sightings are genuine and under close examination, he warned that Fungie fans will have to prepare themselves for the likely inevitability that Ireland’s most beloved marine attraction has disappeared as mysteriously as he first arrived 37 years ago.
The sightings were reported over the past 36 hours at Slea Head, Inch, Kells and Ballyferriter in west Kerry – almost exactly a week after Fungie suddenly vanished. The areas are not associated with Fungie’s normal patrol waters.
Huge shoals of sprat have drawn dolphins and even humpback whales off the west Kerry coast over the past fortnight.
Some locals fear the sightings – while entirely genuine – are cases of whales or even common dolphins being mistaken at a distance for Fungie, a male bottlenose dolphin.
“We have had a lot of calls about sightings and they are all being checked out. But I think the sad inevitability is that Fungie has moved on,” Mr Flannery said.
“But I think it is also very important to say that Fungie’s legacy lives on here in Dingle and across Ireland in terms of modern environmental awareness, a growing eco-tourism industry and sustainable operations within our fishing industry.”
He said Fungie’s impact on west Kerry was so great in the 1980s that Ireland, under pressure from worried Kerry fishermen and boatmen, became one of the first countries to create sanctuary waters for whales and dolphins.
“Former taoiseach Charles Haughey spent a lot of time in Dingle and he played a key part in the environmental initiative. So Fungie made a difference even at the top level of government.”
Mr Flannery said people in Dingle and across Ireland were slowly beginning to understand just how fortunate they were to have had Fungie for so long.
‘I was born the July before Fungie appeared, I feel I grew up with him’
One theory is that Fungie was released back into the wild as a young male after being an attraction at an aquarium, and his experience there left him with a thirst for human contact.
“It is a one hundred million to one chance that a male bottlenose dolphin will ever arrive off Dingle again and make it his home the way Fungie did,” Mr Flannery said.
Few also know that Fungie, a famed bachelor, had a girlfriend around a decade ago. He formed an attachment to a young female dolphin off west Kerry for an entire summer but it is believed that, most likely when she was pregnant, she found the tourist attention in Dingle excessive and went somewhere quieter to raise her calf.
“If you want to be romantic, maybe it is nice to think that Fungie has gone off to look for his family,” he said.
Retired fisherman James Sheehy, out walking his dog Oscar by Dingle Pier, said the loss of Fungie had hit the town hard.
“I only saw him last Tuesday week. What are the boatmen going to do now?” he said.
Aideen Bacaeir, of Dingle Goldsmiths, said the loss was a blow for a town already struggling with the coronavirus pandemic.
Gráinne Garnon, of Kerry Woollen Mills, fought back
tears as she spoke of Fungie’s disappearance.
“I was born the July before Fungie appeared in Dingle so I feel as if I grew up with him and he was part of our local childhood,” she said.
“It is hard to believe he is gone. For me, Fungie wasn’t a commodity or a tourist attraction – he was part of life in Dingle and west Kerry.”
Even those born overseas realised what Fungie meant to the entire Dingle peninsula.
Morgan Brophy, who is assistant manager of Garvey’s Sports, was born in Australia.
“Fungie is part of our shop logo – we have a dolphin emblem on our shopping bags,” she said.