BDMLR - Marine Life Rescue

Besides finding my future career whilst at WhaleFest in October 2011, I also met BDMLR (British Divers Marine Life Rescue).  British Divers Marine Life Rescue is an organisation run by volunteers dedicated to the rescue and well being of all marine animals in distress around the UK

Bristol Docks...not the place for a whale

They run 1 day training courses across the UK, the aim of which is to teach members of the public what to do and how to respond when they find a marine mammal in distress. Whilst it is an unlikely event that there would be a whale stranding near where I live in Bristol and that the possibility of a stranding whilst I'm in Mexico is also rare, I felt that as someone concerned about conservation and marine animal welfare that this would be a good string for my bow.

So on an almost sunny weekend in May, I travelled to Plymouth to attend the course. The day didn't go off to a good start when my so called SatNav took me down the narrowest of country lanes which ended when it narrowed to a cycle path in the middle of some trees. As I was on the cusp of being late, I abandoned the technology and relied on the street signs which directed me to Fort Bovisand and Discovery Divers where the training was taking place.

Having arrived in the nick of time and once everyone was settled with cups of tea our trainers began the day with lessons in basic physiology of cetaceans (whales and dolphins) and seals, rescue techniques and basic first aid.

After lunch the practical exercises began! I had borrowed a rather stylish dry suit from my local dive club (see picture - I'm the one with the pink stripe) so having struggled to get my head through the latex seal on the neck and been zipped in we all made our way down the slipway to practice rescuing creatures.

pretty classy!

My first exercise was how to catch a baby seal. We were taught how to sneak up on an unsuspecting seal with a blanket and to jump on its back neatly behind the flippers and clamp the blanket around the mouth to avoid getting bitten. Fortunately our inflatable model was very obliging and we all managed to jump the seal and manoeuvre it successfully into a cage.

Having saved our stranded seal we moved on to rescuing a dolphin.  By the time we had started the exercises the tide was on its way in and we were having to compete with waves pulling at us and a life sized- fully inflated with water- model of a dolphin caught in the incoming surf. Once again with much cheer we managed to save our dolphin. Now came the ultimate challenge - rescuing a stranded pilot whale.

carrying a model dolphin through the water for release

a very sad whale

don't worry - we'll rescue you! check out the whale rolling action

To be able to move a whale you need a special tarpaulin which is attached to two inflatable pontoons. I want to point out now that a 2 tonne model whale is VERY difficult to manoeuvre. Essentially you have to carefully roll the whale on its side, being careful not to bend a fin the wrong way or to dunk its blow hole under the water and tuck the tarpaulin as far as possible, before rolling the whale the other way to pull the tarpaulin out so it is completely underneath it. Once attached the pontoons were inflated and we managed to bring the whale out down the slipway and released it in to the open bay!


Flushed with our success at the end of the day I agreed to go along to a mass stranding exercise run on Exmouth beach the next day. The aim of the day was a real time scenario where there were multiple strandings along a beach and we had to care for the animals from low tide (time of stranding) until the high tide came back in. As an added bonus, the day was going to be filmed by the BBC's 'Coast'.

Arriving on Exmouth beach in the morning we were introduced to the film crew and briefed on the day and what would be happening.
Soon after we went on to the beach and saw our first situation - 6 dolphins stranded at high tide. Having split in to teams for each animal we assessed the situation and obvious health/injuries of the animal, built a make shift shelter using a towel over head and proceeded to take it in turns to trek back and forth to the retreating sea to collect buckets of water to pour carefully over the dolphins back to stop it from overheating (avoiding the blowhole which is essentially a marine mammals nose - so pouring water down it is similar to water boarding.... highly unpleasant and dangerous for the animal).

Having cared for my dolphin for about 30 minutes I was pulled away as they had 'discovered' 4 pilot whales stuck in the sand. First task was to right the rather sad looking whales which were practically on their sides so that their blow holes weren't under water. As I approached the whales overcame the film crew - this was my moment to shine! Unfortunately, my whale was stuck in a mixture of sand and muscle beds, so my crowning TV moment was me sinking further and further in to the sand as I pushed with all my might to get the whale upright.....

Once the crew had moved on and more people arrived, our whales were set aright and we proceeded to monitor their breaths per minute, keeping them shaded from direct sunlight and keeping them damp.

A few hours later the tide turned and started to come back in. It was at this point the scenarios began to get more interesting. One of my whales wasn't doing very well. One of the vets (an actual vet is present for marine strandings to assist in any way with the actual medical side) came over to us and informed us that our whale was becoming more and more distressed and that it had various injuries. Over the course of the next hour it became clear that my whale was not going to make it and he sadly died.

It may seem odd but I was actually quite distressed at this having spent 4 hours in beside this whale reassuring it, keeping it cool and guarded only for it not to make it. But there was no time to think about that as we still had to help 'save' the 3 other whales.

Thankfully all the others and most of the dolphins were successfully re-floated and sent back out to sea.


I would THOROUGHLY recommend to anyone who lives by the sea, or in general would be interested in marine mammal rescue to take part in the one day course run by BDMLR.

Their website can be found here

nb - all photos on this page are courtesy and copyright of BDMLR (other than bristol docks - I borrowed that from google)