Fifteen Cornwall staff help save stranded seal

Earlier this year a few of our staff took part in a marine mammal medic course and the training came in very handy yesterday when a young female seal pup was washed up on the beach here at Watergate Bay.

The pup was found by staff members at the Shop on the Beach who called the British Divers Marine Life Rescue. Whilst waiting for thr team to our chef Ben Quinn and restaurant supervisor Sarah Kerr both marine mammal medics, were on hand to help.  Ben jumped on the pup to restrain it whilst the BDMLR girls, Faye and Imogen took her temperature and checked her over for injury.  The pup was generally in good health (huge – about 7 stone in weight) and it was decided that she should be released back into the water.   

Chef Ben helps restrain the pup so the BDMRL team can check her over

The surf and tides were far too strong here in the bay so she was carried the length of the beach (and in the words of Lyndsey here at the restaurant who assisted,  “What a long beach it is when carrying a seven stone wriggling seal pup!),  put into a cage and transported to Harlyn Bay where Sarah,  Lyndsey, Faye and Imogen released her back into the ocean.  

Faye and Imogen wanted to name her Fifteen, but since we’d already named a seal that from a rescue last year, it was agreed we’d name her Jools after Jamie’s wife!   They were very impressed with how well Ben handled restraining Jools and were very grateful to our staff for their help, and think it’s pretty special that we have something like this in the bay 

Last week, Sarah was called out to Mawgan Porth where she helped to rescue a baby blue shark.  The shark was taken to the aquarium where sadly it later died, but again Sarah did an great job in rescuing it from the beach.

Our Marine Mammal Medics that we have at the restaurant work and respond to these calls on a 100% voluntary basis and we’re really proud of them.  Well done guys – you do a fab job!

For more pics of the rescue visit our Flickr tab at www.facebook.com/fifteencornwall