Seabound seals
By Kirsten Hockin
Arguably the best part about being a Wildlife Assistant is seeing the animals you have worked so hard nursing back to health get released into the wild . For me in particular it is doing a seal release , but then they are my favourite animal so I might be a little biased !
On a cold and frosty morning , Supervisor Paul and I took five of our seal pups that had finally reached their release weight ( 35kg for females and 40kg for males ) to Combe Martin for the final part of their rehab . Combe Martin is the ideal spot for release as our seals come from all over the west country as well as the Welsh coast . So not only is it a quiet cove but also fairly central to where they may have come from .
Once we had closed the door and got a final release weight the heavy work began . Lifting the rather weighty seals into our vehicles ! Paul had the brilliant idea of reversing our Ranger down to what we affectionately call the Las Vegas pool ( at night the flood lights light it up so we are able to do the final feed and it would give any casino a run for its money on the strip !). So all we had to do was get them out of the bottom of the pool and into the Ranger before Paul then drove them up to the car park where we were then able to transfer 3 of them into the van . With the seals and our equipment loaded we were both ready to set off and hopefully get to Combe Martin for high tide ! This makes our life easier as we don ’ t have to carry them so far on the beach and the receding tide encourages the pups to go out to sea .
It takes us about an hour and a half to get to Combe Martin and by the time we got onto the motorway the seals were quiet and dozing in the back of the van .
Although it is a very rewarding and enjoyable work day when you get to take a trip to the beach with a bunch of seals , it is a lot of hard work ! First of all voyagers ( large cages ) needed to be located , put together and taken to the two release pools the seals are in . Now for the hard bit ... Convincing the seals to go into the voyagers ! To be fair the seals were very cooperative and it took us no time at all .
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