National Seal Sanctuary
		Issue 41
		22nd March 2010

Things have been a little hectic at the Sanctuary over the last few weeks. We have been releasing seals that were ready to go and preparing for Easter and the new arrival of penguins. Our first release to tell you about happened on the 2nd March 2010 at Gwithian, Ginny, Dolores and Stinkweed, who were the last three pups in the Pup Rehabilitation pool. We were hoping that this would be a very easy release, straight out the trailer and into the water, unfortunately these pups had other ideas and on the beach headed for the stream. Stinkweed and Ginny got caught in the fast flowing stream and were quickly taken out into the sea. Dolores put up a bit more of a fight and started to swim up the stream having so much fun where she was, that she didn’t want to leave. Dolores having fun swim against the current got a little close to the fast flowing water and like the other two was quickly swimming in to the sea. Waiting just a little way out was Ginny, and both swam off and round the point together.

On the 5th March 2010, we had three more pups from the Convalescent Pool ready to go, they were SMRU, Beedle and Hooch, for these pups especially SMRU who had been rescued just a short distance away from Gunwalloe, were all released on the beach early that morning. On the 8th March 2010, it was back to Gwithian again to release another five pups. They were Ollivander, Fawkes, Peeves, Winky and Rowena. Luckily this release went a little better then the last one, but there was a little reluctance from Ollivander but after a little bit of encouragement from our Animal Care Team, Ollivander headed down the beach and into the water. We still have fifteen pups receiving rehabilitation at the Sanctuary they are Angelina, Dumbledore, Ronnie, Snowdrop, Lilly, Pomona, Mr Norris, Tonks, Lavender, Neville, Bagshot, Guilderoy, Weasley, Mad Eye Moody and Petunia all are continuing to do well, and putting on weight, but none will be ready to leave the Sanctuary before the Easter holidays. Marlin is still in the naughty pool, and we have managed to open nursery pool 1 to the Convalescent Pool. All ladies have either been through their annual moult or are starting to, Sheba has other things on her mind at the moment as she is spending lots of time with Ray on the haul out area, doing lots of rolling and playing with each other.

Sahara is getting bigger but spending lots of time playing chase with Sija. When not playing chase he like to take it easy and can be found on the edge of the pool resting his head on the buoy, and soaking up the sunshine. André is still winding up Noito and chasing him around the enclosure. Noito and Diego are doing lots of playing together, so maybe André is just feeling left out that none of the other sea lions are playing with him. The Otters, especially Starsky, has now trimmed down. Starsky and Hutch have been doing lots of juggling with pebbles over the last few weeks, maybe they are both looking for careers with the circus.

Andy and Chaff, have started to lose the extra kilos they put on over the winter months, and now looking a lot trimmer. Both were a little confused the other evening when the potential new entertainments staff came into do a mic test and they had to listen to the talk about 8 times, but could not understand why at the end of the talk they didn´t get any fish. Flipper and Yulelogs are doing well with the target training but a little confused when they don´t get fed at 3.30pm as normally they would, but they are not a sea lion and we feed the sea lions at that time. All the goats, ponies and sheep are very happy as Wayne and Craig, members of the Sanctuary’s site team, along with the help of a local farmer, have built new paddock fencing for the animals, hopefully this will stop them trying to get out and explore.

This week saw the arrival of new paddock animals, two goats called Andrew and Steve and a couple of sheep, yet to have names. All four are now up for adoption at the Sanctuary.