Today is International Seal Day and we have a fabulous story to share with you!
Escort the seal's 410km journey from Cornwall-IOM
© Graham Makepeace-Warne
It's international seal day and we have a great story about a seal spotted in Manx waters!
At the beginning of March Craig Whalley, and his friend Shane, were out kayaking on the West coast of the Island where they were followed for a while by a friendly seal.
The underwater camera, attached to the back of Craig's kayak, filmed the seal and, after looking back on the footage, they saw it had a tag.
This photo shows a pattern match, using a photo from when she was rescues and images from the video.
Craig contacted Cornwall Seal Group Research Trust where, after a bit of matching along with parts of the tag number that could be seen from the footage, they were able to identify the seal as a female called Escort (named after the car, the theme for that year).
Escort was rescued in Hayle, Cornwall on 14/12/2017 with a swollen fore flipper and was taken to the RSPCA West Hatch Animal Centre. She only weighed 17.98kg on her admittance and by the time she was released she had doubled in weight to 35kg! She was released 22/2/2018 in Combe Martin, North Devon.
This is a map of where Escort was rescued, rehabilitated, and released.
The distance is about 410 kilometres from Combe Martin to Isle of Man, so it's great that she was able to be identified and her story found.
When a seal is seen in Manx waters, and identified, it gives us an idea of where they travel to/from and idea of their feeding grounds. Every one identified increases our understanding about the seals that reside around our Island!
Watch the video below of Escort, taken by Craig off the back of his kayak!