Cornish Seal Sanctuary braces for busy winter with seven pups already rescued
And it's launching its first ever virtual behind-the-scenes experience
The Cornish seal sanctuary has already rescued seven pups this season as it braces for a busy winter.
The grey seal pup season has officially begun in Cornwall, with the sanctuary only having a matter of hours in between releasing the last season’s pups back into the wild before they had new casualties of the sea in need of their help.
The Cornish Seal Sanctuary rescues between 50-70 seals pups in need every winter and each pup costs, on average, £2000 to rehabilitate, not including special cases.
Now the sanctuary in Gweek is launching its first ever virtual behind the scenes experience, allowing viewers to meet their rescued pups recovering in the seal hospital weekly.
The sanctuary has been an animal rescue facility for more than 60 years, helping seal pups in need from around the coastline. As the only seal sanctuary in Cornwall, pups rely on their help support them through difficult winters.
Seal pups can find themselves in difficulty due to issues such as malnourishment as a result of being separated from their mum too early, wounds caused by marine litter or storms and disturbance from human activity, leaving them unable to fend for themselves in the wild.
The sanctuary currently have seven pups in their care, with four recovering in their hospital, one in isolation and two now down in the nursery pools, which is the next stage of rehabilitation for a pup after being in the seal hospital.
The new weekly live tours allows viewers to meet the seal pups currently recovering in the hospital, ask the animal care team questions, and check in each week to see how the pups are progressing throughout their rehabilitation.
Jana Sirova, General Manager at the sanctuary said “We are so thrilled to be able to allow people to meet the pups virtually, for those that may not be able to get down to visit us, it means they can still have the experience of seeing our rescued pups, as well as hearing all about them from the people who care for them!”
The seal hospital experiences are a weekly virtual event running via Facebook, to attend the exclusive weekly events, you simply need to buy your ticket over on the sanctuary’s Facebook page.
All money raised from the virtual events goes back into the pup rehabilitation work and into the care of the animals that live at the sanctuary permanently, due their need for lifelong care.
The first one takes place today (Saturday 16th October) at 3pm.