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After a busy year rescuing and rehabilitating seals, a local marine life rescue charity has shared its hopes for a seal hospital in Jersey.
At the end of every year, Express speaks to local charities about what their Christmas wishes are for the year ahead.
Pictured: British Divers Marine Life Rescue Jersey rescues and raises seals so that they can live a life in the wild.
Today, we spoke to British Divers Marine Life Rescue marine mammal medic Donna de Gruchy about the charity's work responding to marine mammals in distress...
The best experience for the whole team was releasing four of our Jersey seal pups back in Jersey waters.
Faulkner, Jem, Maya and Didier had all washed up between November 2023 and January 2024, and had been cared for and rehabilitated by the GSPCA.
The decision was made by the GSPCA to bring these pups back to Jersey in April 2024.
Pictured: Faulkner, Jem, Maya and Didier were released back into Jersey waters.
Although it would not have taken the pups long to swim back to Jersey themselves, it was a real joy to see the full circle of opening those crates and getting them back to the wild from Anne Port Beach.
Each seal handler that had lifted a pup off the beach were there to open the crate of their seal along with River George from the GSPCA.
The greatest challenge of 2024 has been that, without any facilities in Jersey available to us as a volunteer rescue team, we would have little to no options for Jersey seal pups and rehabilitation.
The GSPCA seal team was attempting to close their doors for the second year running for immediate refurb.
Pictured: Faulkner was one of four seal pups released in Jersey this spring.
The UK RSPCA had also unexpectedly let us know they had closed their doors to pups from beyond their immediate area, including any CI pups that had to be flown in. This left us (BDMLR Jersey) and the GSPCA with no options but to try and find an emergency plan for the pups expected this season.
The New Era Veterinary hospital is always first on hand to stabilise the pups but we needed the next stage of safe and secure pens for rehabilitation. Without this, the season looked grim for us.
We had managed to already send two pups off to UK facilities, but spaces were filling fast.
Pictured: A pod of dolphins was stranded in a pool at La Rocque in March. (Jon Guegan)
However, since new interim CEO, Tom Noel, has been employed by the JSPCA and made aware of our plight, he has welcomed us for seal pup discussions, and has already put aside an immediate safe area for any pending pups within the JSPCA grounds.
We still have to work out a longer term plan so we are not out of the woods yet, but I am sure as discussions are had and final stages are arranged, we will be able to jointly share our news in the New Year.
This one is easy. Obviously we would prefer no pups or dolphins requiring our attention.
However, our 2025 wishlist is to be able to care for and rehabilitate any orphaned or poorly seal pups on island, so that we no longer have the stress of wondering where and who will be able to help us.
Pictured: Seal pup Maya was also released back into Jersey waters earlier this year.
We now need a seal hospital whether it be temporary or permanent.
The BDMLR Jersey call outs are increasing, the seal pups born here are increasing, so it's definitely time to have a super plan in place for our local marine life.
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