Conservation Gallery
As a Marine Mammal Medic for the BDMLR I respond to call outs in my local area to support the team in their Marine Life rescues. Although seal rescue has remained the main part of the charity’s work - especially around the Cornish coastline it has become progressively more involved in the response to stranded and entangled cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises). Learn more about the rescues that I attend in my local area and read about my Marine Conservation work with the Mounts Bay Marine Group where we are dedicated to helping preserve and highlight the natural wonders of the wildlife of Mount's Bay in Cornwall.
Sadly I discovered this little seal pup on Marazion beach at the weekend who had just died. He was extremely malnourished and severely underweight. He had no obvious external injuries to report but was very tiny. Malnutrition in seal pups can be a result of infection or being weened too early by their mothers. This can be due to the mothers being disturbed by the public whilst feeding or through lack of food. After assessing the pup and recording my initial observations I called him in to the Marine Strandings network who came and collected him.
I came across this 4 - 5 week old seal pup on my way to my early morning swim at Battery Rocks in Penzance in early October. He had been seen in the area for quite sometime swimming close to the shore and coming out at night to rest. After calling it in to the BDMLR team we monitored the sleepy pup for a few hours. Due to it being a very public area we carried out a health check and administered some fluids - there were no obvious signs of injury and the pup weighed in at a healthy 30kg. Without his fluffy white coat we could be rest assured that he was weened and not fully dependent on his mother. After marking his back with a safe non toxic coloured spray so that we could identify him should he appear anywhere else again we then lifted him in a seal rescue bag away from the public area so that he could more easily get into the water.
I was called to this dolphin stranding on St Ives beach In early January this year - it had been swimming in circles in the surf with a group of 3 surfers who initially thought it was playing. As it started to try to beach itself the surfers became increasingly worried. After an unsuccessful attempt to refloat it they called in the team at BDMLR to attempt to rescue it. Upon arrival we could see that the dolphin was extremely malnourished and had very labored breath - after a few minutes it sadly passed away. You can tell if a dolphin is malnourished by the indentations along the side of its dorsal fin. The dolphin also had numerous rake markings - usually made by the teeth of other dolphins and it had some rows of teeth missing with some injuries to its pectoral fins. It was then taken away for post mortem.
