John Henry was rescued on 10th March 2024
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The British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) received a telephone call very early in the morning on the 10th of March 2024 from a member of the public about a seal pup on the beach at Carbis Bay in St Ives Bay.
One of the area coordinators for South West Cornwall, arranged for volunteer marine mammal medics of BDMLR, to check on a seal. When they had arrived, the medics noticed that it had a "L8" marking on it´s back, this one had been check the day before at Porthmeor. It was decided to monitor and place a cordon around the increasingly busy beach and leave the seal to rest.
However, the medics noticed a bulge around the right lower abdomen/pelvis area, and after an hour monitoring and then conversing with their headquarters coordinator, it was decided to assess. Despite a good temperature of 36.9°C; and weight of 23.8kg, the seal was suffering pain when this bulge area was touched, and the decision to uplift to the Cornish Seal Sanctuary was taken.
On arrival at the Sanctuary´s hospital, the receiving Animal Care Team incuding Tamara, Peter and others did an amazing job, the BDMLR three medics waited for the vet´s arrival and assessment. An ultrasound revealed no major issues, no fluid buildup or perforations, and it was likely just to be trapped gas and possibly worms. The pup was put on a course of antibiotics and anti-inflammatories and followed by some TLC from the awesome CSS team.
This 4-5 months old male grey seal pup was named John Henry by the Sanctuary´s team.
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Photos Credit : Billy Nash and Tash Murch - BDMLR
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Update - 16th March 2024 : John will spend some time in the hospital receiving treatment. Once he is feeling better and completed his medication, John will be moved to the outside nursery pools to continue his rehabilitation process. These photos below of John Henry were taken on the 15th of March 2024 in the hospital.
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Update - 15th March 2024 : John is now in the outside rehabilitation pool with other rescued seal pups. It will not be too long before he is released back into the wild in the next few weeks.
His flipper ID tag number is SL295 (yellow).
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Update - 21st April 2024 : The weather conditions in Cornwall were perfect to release some of the seal pups who had been staying at the Sanctuary for the past few months were released back into the wild on the 17th of April 2024 at Perranuthnoe beach in South Cornwall.
John along with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lough Rea, were all at a good weight and fully recovered thanks to the care and expertise of the brilliant Animal Care Team. It is such an amazing feeling for the team to see them happily "galumphing" back home. Good luck little ones.
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*Members of the CSGRT volunteer hundreds of hours of their own time to photo, identify, carry out surveys, monitor and watch over the seals around the Cornish coast.
Each seal´s fur pattern is unique and enables the CSGRT volunteers track them for life.
Seals face many challenges, yet we all depend on them to balance our marine ecosystem. This is essential to make the oxygen we breathe.
Seals are our globally rare wildlife tourist attraction, helping diversify coastal economic prosperity.
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