Seal crisis

Cornwall is facing a seal pup rescue crisis. Partners CSGRT, British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR), the Cornish Seal Sanctuary (CSS) and RSPCA West Hatch Wildlife Hospital are hearing about unprecedented numbers of underweight seal pups around the coast in need of rescue by BDMLR. With no spare capacity at CSS and RSPCA West Hatch, BDMLR…

CSGRT global stage

As an evidence based conservation charity, CSGRT are keen to share research findings as widely as possible. Since the end of October, CSGRT has gone global reinforcing our key messages three times!
On 28/10/17 Elizabeth Hogan from World Animal Protection invited Sue Sayer to attend the Society of Marine Mammlology conference in Halifax Nova Scotia to…

Box is alive!

Seriously wounded, a seal was slashed on her rear flippers by a boat propeller as she was hand fed in St Ives Harbour on 19/08/17. The adult female seal ‘Box desk’ (Box for short) was subsequently identified from witness statements and photographic evidence taken before, during and after the incident. Box had been encouraged to…

Stop feeding seals!

“Horrifying and life changing” – that’s one person’s description of the day their St Ives boat trip went badly wrong. As an enjoyable angling trip came to a close and the boat returned to St Ives harbour, customers gave in to the begging eyes of two seals – ‘Box desk’ and ‘Clouds’ following their boat….

Flipper gets lucky!

Last week Cornwall Seal Group Research Trust’s (CSGRT’s) Sue and Kate went out on one of their twice weekly surveys of the West Cornwall seal complex. Usually at this time of year, seals are hauled on the offshore island, but the rough seas and cooler temperatures have obviously confused the seals, leaving Sue and Kate…

BBC Springwatch Seals

Springwatch have been planning trips to the beautiful Isles of Scilly since 2012 and this year’s final episode featured presenter Gillian Burke snorkelling with seals. Gillian contacted Cornwall Seal Group Research Trust (CSGRT) prior to filming to ensure she followed and communicated best practice.
CSGRT advise that swimming with seals is ONLY done using a…

Partnering for safer seas

Cornwall Seal Group Research Trust (CSGRT) have spent the morning with their partners Fathoms Free at their official boat launch in Penzance conducting multiple interviews on the issue of lost fishing gear.

Chiara from World Animal Protection being interviewed by BBC            Sue from CSGRT talking about the impacts of…

Cornwall Dorset link!

In 2014, Julie Hatcher from Dorset Wildlife Trust (DWT) contacted CSGRT about setting up a seal photo identification project on her patch. After a successful collaboration, two years down the line we have our first (and very exciting) seal photo ID link up – adult female ‘Molar’ aka ‘Gamboling lamb’!
Named after the distinctive black patterns…

Pups on Newsround

The sad story of few day old pup ‘Snoozy’ at Portheras Cove (erroneously and repeatedly put back in the sea by those wishing to help it) captured peoples’ imagination. Despite the very best efforts of Friends of Portheras Cove, Snoozy disappeared after a few days leaving us all fearing the worst :O(
Determined that Snoozy’s story…

CSGRT feature in BBC Wildlife magazine

In 2015, CSGRT hosted visits from freelance writer Amy-Jane Beer and photographer Nick Upton who were researching an article on grey seals for the BBC Wildlife magazine. Amy interviewed Sue Sayer in May at CSGRT HQ whilst Nick joined both Sue and Kate Hockley on a routine land based survey in June and then participated in…

Busy giving seals a voice!

 
Since successfully introducing George Eustice (the DEFRA Minister for farming, food and the marine environment) to his local seals at the end of the last month, we have had a particularly busy time representing seals in our human world!

Sue, George and Kate meet the seals (including flipper tagged Beast – an ex…