Empowering you!
Team effort
We have had another action-packed year here at CSGRT thanks to an enormous voluntary team effort!
2022 has seen us create a volunteer Conservation Team to help spread expertise and share resources. This means we are no longer limited by HQ capacity, enabling other hugely competent volunteers to take action to help seals.
Building on established partnerships
2022 has been a year of partnerships too. This enable us to get our messaging shared with other organisations, to inform their work and help them share best practice more effectively.
Our national Seal Research Trust are members of the following teams: Seal Network UK DEFRA, Seal Alliance NGO, Partnership for Action against Wildlife Crime (PAW) DEFRA, Operation Seabird Police and MMO. Marine Mammal Disturbance Partnership Natural England, Clean Catch UK National Steering Group, Wildlife and Countryside LINK Marine Mammal and Bycatch Groups DEFRA, Welsh Wildlife and Rural Crime Strategy Team Welsh Police, MARC Marine Animal Rescue Coalition NGO, PEG Pinniped Entanglement Group International NGO and the GGGI Global Ghost Gear Initiative International NGO. 2022 saw our founder and director Sue, deliver her first talk in Asia at the 7th International Marine Debris Conference for the GGGI in Busan – albeit at a half past midnight UK time!
Creating new partnerships
We have pursued closer working relationships with a number of statutory authorities, national governing bodies and NGOs this year too including: British Canoeing, Cornwall Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority, Cormac, Cornwall Council, Cornwall Marine Network, Harbour Authorities, National Coastwatch Institute, National Trust, Natural England, RNLI, RSPCA Conservation and Education Teams, Visit Cornwall and Whale and Dolphin Conservation. We are super excited that our resources have been used to inform British Canoeing’s Seal Disturbance Fact Sheet for example.
All this on top of an already pioneering team effort to protect the southwest’s marine and coastal environment through working with Operation Seabird, Cornwall Marine Liaison Group, Cornwall Marine and Coastal Code Group, British Divers Marine Life Rescue, Clean Ocean Sailing, Cornish Seal Sanctuary, Cornwall Wildlife Trust’s Marine Strandings Network, Cornwall Marine Pathology Team, Fathoms Free, Ghost Net Busters, Landowners and land managers, Local NGOs such as the Plastic Pollution Coalition and the Local Marine Group Your Shore Network and RSPCA West Hatch Wildlife Centre.
Sharing resources to help you help seals
To help everyone in these organisations spread best practice and have the evidence, photos and footage to inform and illustrate their actions, we have collected a range of topic based googledrives of public, free to use resources. Delve around, explore and save so you can access and use these resources whenever :
Key advice, resources, reference documentation and protocols https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1tB4_XeUtQ4ahx5FYT0GMrOC4f5HebQSr?usp=sharing.
This contains: Advice on best practice for different coastal users, Recording forms and risk assessments, Graphics for social media, signs and leaflets, Key messages, Reference resources, Reference reports and Rescue protocols.
Education https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ExUagQ3UwqLygWXIXPBId_RV-Kpq0_CU?usp=sharing
Photos/footage of seals
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Bk8yHWr-NVleFlYE7pkY9VoVWEQz-1Da?usp=sharing
Photos/footage of Issues for seals
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0eGzgRih5B4nkfqJERyOUOQOh3HbP_1?usp=sharing
Photos/footage of seal pups https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1dwYnPWeEW6Lv8NS7zTDtzSFHjkozvQFD?usp=sharing
Photos/footage of plastics https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1WEWPwOkFSjyax1kuLFkhzdQoQVraxKo2?usp=sharing
Reports/photos/footage of Disturbance
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1g9-BMDSfF7vDMjj7Msyze8Up_dB4AhkA?usp=share_link
Reports/photos/footage of Entanglement https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/14teSrf6fedAb9EWzY9vqLmsV9CXgsnbI?usp=sharing
Campaign resources for Flying Rings https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1UIIwmKe0puod31WyNss5vhuEhArO-umW?usp=sharing
Increasing our reach to benefit seals
Each partnership amplifies and spreads our impact to a new audience. This breaks us out of our marine world bubble, which is what we so desperately need to do. Despite doing fewer face to face events in 2022, we have still smashed all our previous engagement targets. Going online, Zoom has helped us reach audiences around the UK and beyond, whereas previously our work was self-limited to the southwest.
Young people give us hope
Standout experiences for 2022 have, however, involved youngsters. The next generation are our key hope for survival on a liveable planet. Every school session, college workshop or university lecture we deliver inspires us. It genuinely gobsmacks us when sixth form students prepare the most amazing and insightful interview questions to ask us. We love it when children under 10 are asked what they would like for their birthday, and their answer is … ‘a donation to a seal charity’!
Its all about a big team effort!
Thank you to you all for your interest, care and concern for seals and the sea! We are nothing without our volunteers and supporters who make everything possible. So, thank you all from the bottom of our hearts! Here’s to an exciting and conservation filled 2023!
If you want to support our ever expanding volunteer network, we have a range of funding packages on our website https://sealresearchtrust.com/collections/donate. You can also have the chance to live your life alongside seals by joining our Wild Seal Supporter and Adoption Scheme https://sealresearchtrust.com/pages/wild-seal-support-pack
