Fraserburgh
seal sups monitored by local medics
Initial
reports starting coming in on the Friday afternoon (28th Oct ) that
a seal pup had been sighted near an area on Fraserburgh Beach known
as "The Waters of Philorth" I sent a text message to the
group and proceeded to the area. On scene we found a weaned common
seal resting in a hollow close to a sandbank, with no visible signs
of trauma and of suitable body condition we decided to mark this
incident down as an "observation only ", subsequently
monitoring over the next tide saw our pup quite happily swimming
away.
On Saturday
(29th Oct) morning we received a call again to Fraserburgh Beach
, a Mr Poole had reported a seal pup on some rocks near the caravan
site, however whilst on route a second call was received via a Mrs
Wallace again reporting a seal pup at Fraserburgh Beach only this
time in front of the beach esplanade believing this could be the
same "callout" due to the close proximity of the area's
imagine our surprise to find that there was in fact two pups, again
both commons (weaned), showing slight signs of weight loss, however
no other trauma present, with details taken for our report sheet
we observed the pups for about 2-3 hours before they both left on
the incoming tide . [click image to enlarge]
Sadly
on Sunday (30th Oct) morning Group Medic Linda Robertson reported
a dead seal on Fraserburgh Beach near "Kessock Burn",
fearing that we may have overlooked something during our previous
callouts to the beach it was with a degree of relief to find a very
small, thin, underweight common (male) pup, details recorded and
body tagged, information was then passed to local environmental
health office for uplift and disposal.
Kenneth
McLennan - Aberdeenshire Coordinator
Second
net entangled pup of the season rescued in Cornwall.
30th October 2005
At about 5pm, Senior Animal Care Assistant Tamara
Cooper of the National Seal Sanctuary contacted West Cornwall Coordinator
Dave Jarvis regarding a seal that had been spotted at Penberth Cove,
not far from Land’s End. The person reporting the seal had
said it was hauled out on the slipway and was bleeding. Dave sent
Medic Lesley Jarvis and myself on ahead while he loaded up the cage
and picked up Coordinator Tim Bain from St Ives.
Arriving at dusk,
we found the seal resting on the rocks next to the slipway, and
is was immediately obvious that it was not the usual exhausted 
and
malnourished pups that we normally get – in contrast it was
quite lively. The pup was also discovered to be entangled in a small
amount of monofilament fishing net, which was caught around its
neck and foreflippers. There was some blood around both foreflippers
and a couple of minor injuries on its back. While waiting for Dave
and Tim to arrive, we attempted to herd the seal with a towel and
fish box on to the slipway to make it easier to jump and cage, with
limited success. We managed to get the seal halfway on to the slipway,
but then it decided that it didn’t want to move and lay partly
inside the fish box. At this point, Dave and Tim arrived with the
cage, and between us we managed to coax the seal straight into the
cage without jumping it. It was assessed further under a streetlight
before being taken to the sanctuary for treatment.
At the Sanctuary, the seal was determined to be
a male and weighed in at 23kg. Tamara and Tim carried out a clinical
assessment and cleaned his wounds. The fishing net was cut off,
revealing a small gash on the side of his neck, which was also cleaned.
Due to his temperamental nature, he was named ‘Spike’.
We would like to thank the two members of the public
who live at Penberth cove for reporting the pup and for their assistance
in encouraging the seal on to the slipway.
Pup update 30th October 2100hrs: Despite the best
efforts of the Animal Care Team, Elsie Mo, rescued from Godrevy
on the 27th, died later this afternoon at around 1630hrs.
Medic Dan
Jarvis
BDMLR West Cornwall
(Newquay – Land’s End – St Austell)
Lost
seal pup rescued, Cornwall.
27th October 2005.
Just before midday,
Medics Sue Sayer and Simon Bone were out seal watching in St Ives
Bay to gather data for the Godrevy Seal Group when they noticed
a whitecoat grey seal pup behaving oddly in the water offshore of
a haulout cove. After further observation it was ascertained that
the pup was attempting to suckle from juvenile seals playing in
the water, who interpreted this as either play fighting or attacking,
so the juveniles 
played
or attacked back, with the pup receiving superficial bites to the
head, body and flippers in the process. Undeterred, the pup continued
to search for its missing mother while wailing loudly at the adults
around it. [ watch a video clip of the pup
being approaching the older animals - HERE
- 5mb ]
Sue called Coordinator Dave Jarvis and the National
Seal Sanctuary, who sent out a rescue team consisting of both West
Cornwall Coordinators (Dave Jarvis and Tim Bain); Medic Karl Wheston
and Animal Care Assistant Marianne Fellows from the Seal Sanctuary.
Marianne assessed the pup to be malnourished and likely to have
been separated from its mum in the storms of the previous weekend
– a whitecoat pup was known to be missing by the Seal Group
from further along the coast since Monday morning.
Fortunately, the pup
had returned to the shore by the time the team was ready to attempt
a rescue, 
having
previously gone back in the water while they were en route with
a cage. Tim, Marianne and Karl descended the steep path down into
the cove and headed towards the seal, safely hidden away behind
some boulders on the far side of the beach. Marianne jumped the
pup and Tim took its temperature, which was normal. Karl stayed
near the bottom of the path with safety ropes to help pull the pup
up once it was brought over.
After Marianne and
Tim were done, the pup was wrapped in a seal stretcher net and secured,
and then taken over to Karl, where between the three of them it
was brought back up to the clifftop. Once there, the pup, a female,
was transferred to a cage and was taken by Marianne back to the
Seal Sanctuary for treatment and rehabilitation, and was named ‘Elsie
Mo’. She weighed around 12kg.
For more photos of
the rescue, please visit Medic Sue Sayer’s Godrevy Seal Group
website (www.suesseals.eclipse.co.uk)
and Medic Simon Bone’s Cornish Seals website (www.cornishseals.co.uk).
Update – 30th
October 1500hrs: After doing well for the first couple of days,
Elsie Mo’s condition deteriorated overnight on the 29th/30th.
This morning she was found in very poor condition and the Animal
Care Team are doing everything they can to help her pull through.
Update - 30th October 22.15hrs : Sadly, Elsie Mo
passed away later this afternoon at around 4:30pm, having spent
most of the day on an intravenous drip.
Murphy, rescued from Bude the previous week, sadly
died during the night of the 16th after a downturn in his condition.
Thatcher and Guinness are both improving.
Medic Dan
Jarvis
BDMLR West Cornwall
(Newquay – Land’s End – St Austell)
Seal
Pup Rescue, Challaborough, South Devon.
21st October
On receiving the call
from head office at 4:30pm on Friday 21st October, I immediately
got my things together and headed out. I had been told that we had
a seal pup on the beach at Challaborough [ click HERE
for map], fully moulted and independent, but that it appeared to
be taking a bit of a battering in the surf. The initial advice was
to make an assessment, but that it just might need moving and possibly
monitoring over the coming days. The weather in Plymouth was relatively
calm, and clear with the sun low in the sky, a nice evening by all
accounts, so I wasn’t really prepared for the conditions on
the beach. On arriving I was greeted with 5ft surf and a severe
onshore wind and as if that wasn’t enough, an incoming tide!
Mike Skelly (Plymouth Medic) was already on site and had located
both Sal, the lady who had placed the call to us and the seal pup.
After initially observing the pup and speaking to Sal, who had been
there for the last three hours, it was clear that Mum was nowhere
in sight and judging by the size and grey coat we made the assessment
that the pup was probably independent of Mum. After discovering
that the beach had no mobile reception, the guys in the seaside
café permitted us to set up a telephone base there, where
numerous calls were made between myself, Alan Knight, James Barnett
and Dan Jarvis in Cornwall, who was on alert in case we were bringing
the pup into Gweek.
Following the assessment where the female pup made
no attempt to get away, or even to bite us, Mike and I decided she
needed to be brought in for a thorough assessment and rest bite
from the increasingly bad weather conditions. After a quick conversion
of my recently “cleaned” car to a seal carrier, we were
off to Ivybridge where James was waiting to meet us. After administering
fluids, antibiotics and listening to her lungs, James confirmed
that we had indeed made the correct decision to bring her in, as
he suspected she was either suffering from pneumonia or perhaps
a bacterial or viral infection. From Ivybridge she travelled to
Exeter before being collected by Shaun Clements, (Wildlife Supervisor,
West Hatch) and finally taken to West Hatch for the night.
Shaun called me first thing on Saturday morning.
Unfortunately she had not made it through the night. A gross post-mortem
is due to be carried out to find out the exact cause of death. I’ve
got to admit being my first seal rescue it was a steep learning
curve and as you would expect all the more experienced medics were
out of the region on Friday evening – however there has got
to be a first time for everything, though if I’m honest my
heart dropped as I heard she had not made it. I would like to thank
Mike and his family for all their hard work and quick response on
the night, James and Shaun for coming out, Alan and Dan for their
advice, and both Sal for all of her dedicated observation and protection
of the pup until our arrival and to Fryer Tucks Café on the
Seafront who permitted us unlimited us of the telephone.
My car is now clean again and my dry suit and grab
bag are ready once again, fingers crossed this years pups won’t
need us again!
Lissa Goodwin,
West Devon Co-ordinator
East
meets West: two pups in one day
20th October 2005
At midday, the National
Seal Sanctuary in Cornwall had a call from a member of the public
regarding a grey seal pup caught in fishing net at Cape Cornwall,
near Land’s End. The Sanctuary staff called West Cornwall
Coordinator Dave Jarvis and asked him to attend. Dave called fellow
Coordinator Tim Bain and picked him up en route with the seal cage.
After searching the beach, a very rocky one that
made it difficult to spot the pup, it was found after contacting
the original caller. The pup was sitting on top of a pile of seaweed
on the strandline in the entrance to a cave. It was entangled around
the head and neck by monofilament netting. Tim jumped the pup and
found it to be underweight but had no injuries besides cuts to the
mouth where it had tried to chew unsuccessfully through the mesh
to escape. The cage was put into position and Tim went to lift the
pup… but nothing happened! The remainder of a large net was
deeply entangled in the seaweed beneath the pup, consequently holding
it to the ground. After a bit of digging and cutting, the pup was
free and safely caged and on it’s way to the Sanctuary.
During the journey, a call came through about another
seal, this time near Bude in the far North East corner of the County.
Medic Sue Gear was sent out to assess the pup while Dave and Tim
delivered one pup and took the cage on to the new one. Sue called
back a short while later, having assessed the pup to be in need
of rescue.
As the tide was now
coming in quickly, Sue jumped the pup and put it in a basket, which
could then be used to carry it to the top of the beach and 
a
safe place. On arrival, Dave and Tim found the pup lying on its
back in the basket half-hidden beneath a towel doing it very best
to look cute while Sue and a small crowd of onlookers watched over
it. The pup was tube fed before being transferred to the cage, and
its injuries consisted of punctures and lacerations to the chest
and neck. The pup was taken straight to the Sanctuary where Animal
Care Assistant Marianne Fellows discovered it’s temperature
was very high at 40.1 degrees. She then administered a series of
antibiotic injections after consulting with expert marine mammal
veterinarian Paul Riley. It has now been named ‘Murphy’,
and joins the newly named ‘Thatcher’ (named not after
the former Prime Minister, but the cider!) from Cape Cornwall in
the Isolation Unit.
We would like to thank Anita Wheatley for her assistance
with the Cape Cornwall pup, and Medic Sue Gear for her efforts in
the rescue at Bude.
Medic Dan
Jarvis
BDMLR West Cornwall
(Newquay – Land’s End – St Austell)
North
Cornwall pup rescue
19th October 2005.
It has been a busy
week for the Cornwall team with three pups being rescued in the
space of two days. The first came from Crackington Haven, 
near
Boscastle, on the North East coast of the County. A member of the
public made a call to the National Seal Sanctuary, who in turn contacted
BDMLR and asked them to take a look. Initially, Chris Bolton from
the North Cornwall group attended, whilst West Cornwall Coordinator
Dave Jarvis (who happened to be in Wadebridge) made his way to the
scene. Upon arrival, Dave immediately requested the attendance of
Coordinator Tim Bain and Medic Phil Jarvis to drive up with a cage
to transport it back to the Sanctuary, having advised them that
the animal would be coming in to them.
The pup was found at the top of the beach, far away
from the sea, and was not in good condition. It was malnourished,
dehydrated, and with an injury to one of its foreflippers. Whilst
on the beach it was tube fed fluids and the temperature taken, which
was found to be low. Due to this, the long distance it needed to
be transported and the time of day, it was agreed that Medic/veterinarian
Mike King and Medic/vet nurse Jenny Haley of Duchy Vets at Newquay
would hold it overnight ready for the trip on to the Sanctuary in
the morning. The next day, a member of the Animal Care Team collected
the pup and brought it back to the Sanctuary to begin rehabilitation,
where it was named ‘Guinness’.
We would like to thank Wilbur and Brooke; the staff
at Coombe Barton Inn for the refreshments, and the residents and
children of Crackington Haven for their help and support during
the incident.
Medic Dan
Jarvis
BDMLR West Cornwall
(Newquay – Land’s End – St Austell)
Essex
Guides Fund-raise for BDMLR
6th
October
On
Thursday 6th October I did a talk for the 3rd Cranham Park Guides.
Their guide leader, Sue French, is a marine mammal medic and was
keen for the girls to see what was involved in dolphin rescue. I
showed the girls the BDMLR video and then we all had a go at 'refloating'
the dolphin. The girls worked together really well and we successfully
rescued the dolphin!!!
In
return the Guides did a sponsored walk last Sunday and have raised
over £200 for BDMLR!!!
I just
want to say a huge thanks to the girls and Sue for all their hard
work, I hope your feet aren't too sore!
Faye
Archell
BDMLR Essex Coordinator
click
images for larger size |
|
|
Seal
pup - Downderry Beach, Cornwall
15th
October
Yesterday
(15.10.05) I attended a seal at Downderry beach. When I arrived
at 1010 hours. I found a large group of people many with dogs standing
within about 5' of the pup.
The pup was about two weeks old lethargic and making no effort to
move away and was holding its left fore flipper up and making no
effort to use it even when rolled over. I was concerned there might
be a fracture. There were also a superficial injury on its back
which although I couldn't see the extent of was attracting a lot
of flies so gave me cause for concern. The other major problem with
this pup was its location in the middle of Downderry beach on a
beautiful sunny day with hundreds of dog walkers expected during
the day. Therefore in consultation with the seal sanctuary a decision
was taken to transport it to Gweek. I arrived there at about 1230
hours the journey was really slow due to loads of traffic and the
pup was quite hot when I arrived even though I'd had both windows
open and the fans on all the way. It was then immediately hosed
down by the hospital care team.
I understand that the flipper and the shoulder (left fore) are very
badly bruised but thought not to be broken and that the pup has
a high 
temperature
and is quite snotty today but should be fine?
This photograph shows a Mr Roseveor (a local builder) and his mates
who kindly transported the pup along the beach to my van in their
4x4. (sorry I forgot to take any until after it was loaded)
[Editor : Here's a quote from Rob]
"Having been a Marine Mammal Medic for a year now, I have not
been lucky enough to receive a call yet. It was great to get the
opportunity to help this pup and I'm looking forward to being further
involved."!!!
Rob
Skinner - RSPCA Inspector & BDMLR Medic
London
says NO to dolphin slaughter and we say a huge THANKS
8th October
THANKS A MILLION ……
to all of you who
came along and contributed to the day – whether you waved
a banner, banged a drum, arranged flower laying or dolphin chains
it
was all very much appreciated. I am sure you will all agree that
we certainly made enough noise and attracted a lot of attention
from the public. It was great to put faces to names of people I
had not met before and to also meet up with a few old acquaintances
.. it was good to see each and every one of you, thank you for turning
out for the dolphins.
[ more
images on BDMLR Image Library ]
I would also like to take a moment to thank
those who, for whatever reason, could not be there in person today
but were there in their hearts to support us; Alan Cooper and Alan
Knight are certainly amongst those who would have loved to have
been able to add their voices and presence; and of course to remember
the fantastic Ben White, who I am sure was with us in spirit (thanks
Will for your very kind tribute).
All that is left now is for us all to keep
up the pressure and the momentum – together we can stop this!
Thanks once again
to all of you.
In Freedom ~ for the dolphins.
Margaux Dodds
- Director & Co-founder
The
Marine Connection
