We arrived just before high tide , giving us time to carry the voyagers down to the water ’ s edge and line them up ready . Now for the best bit ... Opening the voyager doors and letting them go . We try to release ours in groups so that in theory for the first few days they have company and they tend to follow each other out to sea . After a tentative look around , the pups left the voyagers and made a dash for the sea .
There is also the issue of having to get used to not only the waves but also the buoyancy that salt water gives them compared to the freshwater they have been used to !
Three of them went straight in and started to head out , however two of them were not quite so sure about the new pool they were being put into ! The pups come into us for various reasons , some have hardly seen the sea let alone been in it before and some have been caught in storms . So you can understand why they might be a little apprehensive to begin with .
Eventually the final two made their way in and all that was left for Paul and I was to make sure none of them changed their minds and came back out . This just involved us hanging around a short while and keeping an eye where they were surfacing and making sure they were heading out . After around 10 minutes or so of them swimming backwards and forwards in the cove they had all eventually disappeared from sight and we could deem the release a success !
All our seals are tagged on their rear flipper ( left for females and right for males ) with an ID number to aid in post release monitoring . We also take photos of their pelage and the very talented Sue Sayer and her team at Cornwall Seal Group Research Trust are able to use this to identify any of our seals that they spot in the wild . We are very lucky to have this resource and work closely with such wonderful people as their sightings are invaluable to the future of our successful rehabilitation process .
With the seals finally gone , the only thing left for us to do was reload the voyagers and head back to the Centre , after what I would call a very successful and enjoyable day at work !
17