This weekend, the SRRC received a call from the LPA (Ligue Protectrice des animaux), an animal protection organisation in Calais, France. They had a mature grey seal that had got its head stuck in a fishing net. The poor animal had been seen swimming around for over a week, hurt and with the net around its neck. But he had now become so weak that they were able to catch him and undo him from the net.
There are rehabilitation facilities for seals in France, but a seriously injured two-metre tall seal, weighing over 140 kilos was too much for them. Because the members of the LPA had previously followed a course at the SRRC in Pieterburen, the French animal protectors decided to contact us. We agreed to bring the animal to Pieterburen. In order to bring the animal her, two of our seal first-aiders from Zeeland, Jaap van der Hiele and Marten Geerse, immediately set off for Calais, while a team from Pieterburen started driving south with the seal ambulance.
The seal, called Luke by its finder, was so exhausted that it slept most of the way. At the SRRC, we determined that we were dealing with a 4 or 5 year-old male. On his first day, he ate five kilos of fish and was given over a litre of ORS (Oral rehydration salt). His wounds have been cleaned and he is now receiving antibiotics.
Now, it is a question of getting better and stronger. The wound will always stay visible as an ugly scar. But Luke has been saved and that is the main thing!
10-05-2009 Source: SRRC Lenie 't Hart
