In Marine Super Year 2021
31/08/2021
VIP speech, zoom and visit
In Marine Super Year 2021, little did we know when CSGRT were mentioned by Rebecca Pow in her Ocean Recovery Conference speech, that we would soon meet her online via zoom and then she would visit us later in the year. Despite her busy schedule as Parliamentary Under-secretary of State for Domestic Environment, Rebecca approached us to host a visit for her to share news of our marine conservation work with seals.
We were delighted to meet Rebecca, whose environmental credentials span her career – from reporting on the Sea Empress Oil Spill Disaster as a TV correspondent to her current influential position. Fortunately, our seals turned up in good numbers with some interesting characters and stories to tell show casing our pioneering citizen science photo ID work at a regional scale. We even witnessed disturbance by watercraft firsthand, as 6 seals were disturbed in one incidents (level 1 - 2 seal; level 2 - 3 seals and level 3 - 1 seal).
With so much in common, CSGRT’s founder and Director Sue and Rebecca’s marine discussions were wide ranging from Rebecca’s direct actions on marine microplastics plastics to lost fishing gear and most importantly improving seal disturbance legislation, bringing it in line with that for cetaceans and whales.
Several options for achieving this were discussed:
Amending the Conservation of Seals Act by adding ‘disturbance and harassment’ to the current wording ‘take, injure, kill’
Include seals in the Wildlife Legislative Review for the government’s Green Paper
Enable Natural England to simplify the Site of Special Scientific review process allowing species to be added more easily where appropriate evidence exists.
CSGRT have just received a letter from Rebecca recognising that “unintentional disturbance by the public can be detrimental and, on occasion, fatal to seals and that greater public awareness is needed to protect these vulnerable marine mammals”. She confirmed that “DEFRA officials are looking to see what potential action can be taken and if it possible to introduce stricter measures to protect seals from disturbance. Whilst this work is at an early stage, we look forward to continuing to work closely with CSGRT as it progresses”.
We cannot thank Rebecca enough for taking the time visit us and talk about a huge range of marine issues. High level VIP visits like these celebrate the incredibly hard work that our volunteer network puts into seal photo ID research year round, in all weathers and in some cases for decades. Informed visits like these would not be possible without the dedication and commitment of everyone who has ever sent us seal data! Thank you all!
