20th Birthday Conference

If you haven’t already heard, it’s our 20th Birthday!
CSGRT have been monitoring, identifying and protecting grey seals around the SW since 2000. Incredibly some of the seals we first met in 2000 have been seen again in 2020!
To celebrate, we arranged our first ever seal conservation conference! We went virtual because of COVID-19…

Our latest photo ID hub!

In 2018 a generous grant from the Postcode Local Trust (supported by players of the People’s Postcode Lottery) enabled us to formalise and take forward 15 photo ID hubs around the coast of Cornwall and Devon – including Lundy and the Isles of Scilly.

The latest team to join this exciting adventure with CSGRT…

Oh no x 2!

Oh no! ‘Medallion Man’ and ‘Radley’ have both been HOOKED by angling lures. Sadly this is an unintended consequence of feeding seals in harbours.
On a recent boat survey, CSGRT witnessed Medallion Man – an iconic adult male grey seal begging unmercifully around a Newquay Harbour tripper boat, from which he got fed to the delight of…

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…

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…

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…

Give pups space

The first mainland pup rescue of the season took place just one day later than last year! Well done to British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) Coordinator Dave Jarvis and his team of Marine Mammal Medics for a highly successful rescue of a five day old white coated pup from Portreath. This seal pup is now…

Job done!

Thanks to everyone who shared our post yesterday about the young female seal who was badly entangled in lost or storm damaged trawl net.
British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) received a call (via the RSPCA) last night to say that a seal matching the nettie’s description was hauled out on the mainland beach at…

Please keep a look out!

Little did we know when we left home at 5.30 this morning for a routine seal monitoring session, that our day would be hijacked by a young female seal.
Seal surveys are governed by the tides and in the summer this means surveying as close to low tide as possible whilst still leaving enough hours in the…

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…

Newsflash: Uno is dos! Tres!

The first pup (Uno) to be rescued during the 2015/16 season turned out to be number two (dos) in the 2016 rehabilitated seal resightings list!
Seen today on the West Cornwall haul out from which she had been rescued, Uno looked fit and well.

Ironically Kerplunk, the second seal to be rescued during the 2015/16 season…

CSGRT attend SMM2015

Research findings about grey seals in south west England found a wider audience at the Society of Marine Mammology Conference (SMM2015) at the Hilton, Union Square, San Francisco thanks to funding from World Animal Protection and Cornwall College Newquay. The purpose of Sue and Bex’s trip was to share our research on grey seal entanglement…