Spectre’s
flipper foibles
Spectre came in to West Hatch on the
6th March from Bude in Cornwall. He
had a very swollen front right flipper,
which we suspected was broken and
only weighed 20kg.
This may seem a lot but not for a grey
seal pup who for his age should be
around 40kg. He was also very quiet and
coughing badly.
When a seal pup first comes into us our
first port of call is to get them hydrated
with oral fluids. You can tell a pup is
hydrated when they have a wet ring
around each eye or ‘specs’.
Once Spectre was stable and his cough
had cleared up he was sedated to see
what was going on with his flipper.
Sedating a seal is always a risky procedure
as they can go into what is known as their
‘deep dive reflex’.
An adult grey seal can hold its breathe for
around 30 minutes due to this ability, but
if they go into this under sedation then
its bad news. However all went well with
Spectre and as you can see from the X-ray
one of his digits was indeed fractured on
his flipper.
While under sedation our veterinary team
amputated the fractured part of the digit
and he is now recovering well in one of
our outdoor pools. The flipper itself is
healing very well and he is gaining weight
daily. It won’t be long until we can release
him back into the wild with his friend Jinx.
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