An account of the baby seal rescue was reported in the local paper yesterday, with a picture of a baby Grey seal, (not sure if it was actually him) on the front page, and one of my photos of the actual rescue accompanying the article.

Hopefully the article will help to raise awareness of the proximity to us of these lovely animals and of our responsibility to their welfare. The breeding season for Grey seals is underway now and will mostly go smoothly and escape our notice, but there will be times when intervention is necessary.

Help may at times be called for when it is not necessary, so the RSPCA have published guidelines on their website on how to tell if a baby seal is really in trouble and what to do in that event:

Meanwhile, happily all seems to be going well for the rescued seal pup; now relocated to the safety of the Seal Unit at the Welsh Mountain Zoo, he has been given the name ‘Jakey’ and I have no doubt at all that he is being very well cared for there.

Raising a baby seal is a huge undertaking and I imagine, very labour intensive. In a natural situation, pups would drink about 3 litres a day of their mother’s milk, which is about 60% fat, and their weight increases rapidly, they put on about 35 to 40kg in their first 3 weeks. At the Zoo, rescued pups are fed a special fish-paste diet to begin with, then will be taught to eat whole fish in around a month’s time. He will need to be carefully monitored and the aim is to release him back into the sea sometime in the New Year.