Scarborough schoolchildren educated on wildlife and seal safety
Filey-based Yorkshire Seal Group is talking to pupils ahead of World Earth Day
Wildlife safety is being talked about in Scarborough today ahead of World Earth Day next month.
The Filey-based Yorkshire Seal Group is educating pupils at St George's School.
The actual day is during the Easter holidays so many are marking it today.
Matt Barnes, co-founder of the group, said: "We try to have Earth Day basically every day. We obviously advocate people to be in touch with their environment and to protect their environment, but having symbolic or iconic days just helps to draw more attention to it and more focus so it gets more publicity and reaches people that it might not perhaps reach typically.
"We have about 40 volunteer stewards at the moment and predominately we engage with people on the coastline in areas where seals occur, just to try and mitigate disturbance or damage to the seals basically and just try to promote the best way possible to interact with our wildlife on the coast.
"Seas and oceans are great for protecting our mental health as well as generating income, recreational use but we have to remember obviously that comes into contact with other animals that migth be living there and other species, so it's all about co-existence, empathy and making sure we share the resources that we have.
"We're going to schools and educating them on why we need this biodiversity, why it's important for the ecosystems, for our livelihoods and for sustainability, so it's a mixture of education, outreach and research as well, finding out how seals are doing in the area and how we might be able to promote their health and welfare.
"It's really important that seals have the space to sleep, to rest and pup on the land so encroachment can be really, really damaging for them. We always advise people to view them with optics, keep dogs on their leads, don't fly drones near seals, keep the volume down and we're also looking for more volunteers as well to help spread the message, whether that's in schools or on the coastline."
Find out more about Yorkshire Seal Group here.