1st March
U.K. Porpoise Stranding - Full Report
Lives nearly lost at Sperm
Whale Stranding
As mentioned in a previous report we had a sperm whale washed up on
the Norfolk coast a little while ago. I was sent a few shots of the
animal to make my life easier. Unfortunately not everyone got to see
photos so they decided to go and have a look for themselves. As a
result of this several people ended up being cut off by the tide and
had to callout emergency services to get them safely back to shore*.
In light of this I thought I'd send this out to remind people to be
extra careful when attending a stranded animal. The tide cut these
people off in a matter of minutes and I understand the coastguard
were being called out daily while the animal was still there. Some
people were going out to have a look, others were going out and cutting
teeth off, believe it or not there were even people going up there
and trying to walk on the rotting carcass!!!!
Please check tide times and weather conditions before going out to
a stranding, if you haven't got a tide table with you, call the coastguard
and they will tell you tide and even weather conditions.
From the enclosed shot you can see how far out people were from the
shore.
Regards,
Kieran Copeland,
Anglian Co-ordinator,
British Divers Marine Life Rescue,
anglia@bdmlr.org.uk
Seal outwits rescuers
- again
20th April
A seal which anglers had
threatened to shoot has again frustrated attempts to rescue him from
a river near Loch Lomond.
Divers called it a day on Sunday
after spending about 12 hours trying in vain to catch Salty, also
known as Andre, and now nicknamed Houdini.
Salty had faced execution at dawn on Wednesday
by anglers on the River Leven, who accused him of eating salmon stocks
worth thousands of pounds.
However, after pressure from the media and
hundreds of locals who turned out to protest, plans to shoot the three-year-old
seal were dropped.
A team of rescuers, from the British Divers
Marine Life Rescue, started trying to catch him last week by laying
a series of small tuna nets and herring-baited pontoons - to no avail.
On Sunday about 20 marine experts anchored
one huge 100ft by 80ft net to the riverbed in the hope of catching
the seal when he took to the water for a swim.
Their latest rescue attempt started
before 0630 BST on Sunday and carried on into the early evening, before
the divers gave up.
Rescue co-ordinator Gareth Norman said the
seal had out-witted them.
He said: "We have tried all the nets but
Andre has managed to elude them.
"We thought we were prepared with the
new net, which was brought up from England, but we will have to have
a re-think.
"He has us stumped."
No sex
Doreen Graham, from the Scottish Society for
the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SSPCA), said the seal's natural
habitat was salty, not fresh, water.
"Man is his enemy, but in this case we
are actually trying to do him a big favour.
"We wish he would just let his guard down for a minute so we
can get him off to his proper home."
She added: "At his age, most seals are
preoccupied with food and sex.
"He is getting plenty of the first but
not enough of the other, which he would find more of at a colony in
the wild."
The divers are expected to stage another rescue
attempt on Tuesday. New tactics may include a sonar seal-scarer normally
used on fish farms, and different bait including squid and crab.
Poison risk
The River Leven Angling Improvement Association,
which had threatened the shooting, said on Sunday it hoped the rescue
would work.
"He needs to be brought out of the river
for his own safety," said association chairman Michael Brady.
"In reality I feel like I am saving Andre
because, left in the river for another five or six weeks, he would
be killed one way or another.
"Already local idiots have set dogs on
it, shot at it with air pistols and thrown bricks at it.
"The main danger is that someone tries
to poison it, and that would mean suffering a lingering death, which
nobody wants. We all want a happy ending."
Salty has become a popular tourist attraction
since he first appeared in Loch Lomond a year ago.
He became stranded in shallow water after managing
to swim into the River Leven and over a weir at Balloch, as he tried
to make his way back to the sea.
When captured he will be transported to Fife,
where he will be released amongst a colony of grey seals.
( source : www.news.bbc.co.uk )
Houdini seal wins reprieve
22nd April
A seal whose Houdini antics scuppered
plans to move him from a Scottish river is to be allowed to stay for
another week.
A huge operation to rescue the three-year-old grey seal has been ongoing
for a week, since anglers threatened to shoot him for eating their
valuable fish stocks.
Anglers on the River Leven relented under pressure
from animal welfare supporters and the seal was given a permit to
legally fish the waters near Loch Lomond.
The permit even featured a passport-sized photograph
of the seal, nicknamed Andre, and runs until 31 October.
Natural habitat
Despite the permit, rescuers from various wildlife
bodies said they will continue attempts to remove the seal.
His rescuers, headed by the Scottish Society
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Scottish SPCA), have said
that Andre, also known as Salty, should be removed from the loch and
returned to his natural habitat.
However,
a 12-hour effort to remove him from the loch on Monday failed and
the SSPCA said that it would not begin searching again until the weekend
at the earliest - and they may leave it as long as next week.
Spokeswoman for the charity Doreen Graham
said: "We are going to leave the rescue attempt this week.
"We want to give him the chance to forget
the nets and the rescuers.
"On Sunday we were so close to catching
him, but the attempt failed.
"We knew at the start of the operation
that it wouldn't be easy, but he is now at an age where he is beginning
to think about girls and hopefully that will entice him out of the
loch."
The Scottish SPCA has also reported that a
net used in the rescue attempts has been stolen from the back of one
of their vehicles after the second rescue attempt.
The net, which belongs to the British Divers
Marine Life Association, was 
the
only one in the rescuers' possession and its disappearance has further
held up the rescue process.
If he is captured, rescuers hope to relocated
Andre at St Andrews, Kincardine or Aberdour on the east coast of Scotland
where seal colonies already exist.
( source : www.news.bbc.co.uk )
[ Hope we get 'our' net back ! Tony. ]
Seven surviving pilot
whales swimming, health improving - Florida Keys
22nd April
Seven pilot whales that survived being stranded
last week in the Florida Keys swam under their own power Tuesday as
their conditions slowly improved, rescue officials said.
The six adults and one calf have been upgraded
from "extremely guarded condition" to "guarded condition,"
said Denise Jackson of the Florida Keys Marine Mammal Rescue Team.
She said the whales were being fed a mixture
of water and Pedialyte - a drink normally given to dehydrated human
babies - plus 1/4 of a pound of squid, Jackson said. They were swimming
in a temporary holding facility set up by volunteers who have worked
around the clock since Friday to care for the animals.
"They are improving, definitely,"
Jackson said. "I wouldn't say everything is hunky-dory, but it's
encouraging after five days to have all of them up and swimming."
The seven whales were among 28 that stranded
themselves Friday in shallow waters near Big Pine Key in the lower
Florida Keys. Seven died, five were euthanized, six were seen swimming
in the Gulf and three were unaccounted for Tuesday, Jackson said.
Volunteers on Tuesday kept the surviving whales
shaded from the sun, which can burn their skin, as they followed them
around with umbrellas in the confined holding facility, Jackson said.
Previous blood tests have shown that they are suffering from anemia,
dehydration, viral infections and possible kidney and liver problems.
Still, if the seven survive, officials said
their recovery time will be lengthy.
Meanwhile, a rescue official said Tuesday that
the stomachs of many of the 12 dead pilot whales were empty, meaning
they had been away from their natural habitat in deeper waters for
some time.
Necropsies revealed that most of the whales
were weak because had not eaten in the days prior to the stranding,
said Laura Engleby, rescue coordinator for the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Service.
One female pilot whale showed signs of pneumonia
in a necropsy, she said.
"They were out of their habitat for a
while," Engleby said.
( source : www.heraldtribune.com )
beaching
themselves in the sandy flats in Content Pass north of Big Pine
Key. 