Lough Rea was rescued on 11th March 2024
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British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) received a telephone call on the 11th of March 2024 from a concerned member of the public about a young seal pup alone on the beach by the shore wall in the Penzance.
One of the area coordinators for South West Cornwall, arranged for Alison and Viliam, volunteer marine mammal medic of BDMLR, to check on the pup.
Alison said "We met a very interesting pup in Penzance today. She was very well camouflaged but luckily Viliam has amazing eyesight.
We moved her to a drier spot but noticed a tag as we bagged her. By the time we had completed our assessment, Jenny HM had more information! She was rescued by Seal Rescue Ireland as a whitecoat in Kerry at the end of October 2023 weighing 17.2kg and named Lough Rea. She was released on the 26th of January 2024 weighing 35kg from Courtown! Today, she weighed 20.2kg."
Apart from a few fairly minor wounds, the pup seemed ok. The only obvious issue were her substantial weight loss and that she was quite quiet with poor flipper strength, although body condition-wise, not too bad. The weight loss could possibly be due to her mammoth swim or something else, the pup was taken to the Sanctuary to find out more and continue the substantial rehabilitation that the pup had already received in Ireland.
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Photos Credit : Alison Davey - BDMLR
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This pup was transferred to the Sanctuary in Gweek for care and rehabilitation. Upon arrival at the Sanctuary hospital, the Animal Care Specialist Team arranged for their vet to come and carry out a full assessment of the seal and prescribed a course of antibiotics.
Update - 16th March 2024 : This photo of Lough Rea was taken a few days later on the 15th of March 2024 in the hospital. Her blue tag ID number is SRI-N-078 (Seal Rescue Ireland).
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Update - 25th March 2024 : Lough Rea is now in the outside nursery pool number 4, this means she is on the road to recovery and mixing with other seal pups, also has a deeper pool to swim in. Pups in the nursery pools will be learning how to behave in the wild, interacting with other seals and also competing for their fish, which are all vital skills they will need when they are released back out into the wild.
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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.
Lough Rea along with Arnold Schwarzenegger and John Henry, 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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