The Dungeness Coastguard was on hand last Tuesday to rescue a seal pup which had crawled ashore at Littlestone beach after battling the elements of Storm Dennis last weekend.
The British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) team was hastily called who declared nothing unusual as seal pups often come ashore to rest after battling storms. This one, a grey male pup, about six months old, was dehydrated, had a raised temperature and an infected wound on its rear flipper.
BDMLR’s advanced marine mammal medic, Jez Stone, later collected the pup and transferred it to RSPCA Mallydams Wood near Hastings, for rehabilitation.
The pup will be released back to sea when it has regained appropriate weight and any infection has healed.
Seals seem to be hogging the wildlife news this month, writes the Editor, with another having been spotted (right) and photographed by our reader Doug English, swimming in the Military Canal above Scot’s Float lock.
One can only hope that it was, in due course, able to take advantage of free flow through the lock and return to the rest of its family near Rye Harbour.
Some time ago, yet another seal was seen (left) up by Strand Quay, but this latest sighting holds the record so far for the furthest up river. Whether it found any fishy food worth eating in the canal is open to conjecture.
Image Credits: BDMLR , Doug English , Matthew Bull .