Rescued seal pups released with GPS trackers for study
“This GPS tracking will provide us with an amazing insight into the lives of our pups as they adjust to life in the wild” – Anne van Domburg.
A seal sanctuary has teamed up with a university to study the movement of seal pups after they have been released.
Mary and Maggot, who were rehabilitated at the Cornish Seal Sanctuary, have been released back into the wild fitted with GPS tracking equipment.
They are the first of 15 grey seal pups that will be tracked as part of the study, which is the first of its kind to be carried out in South West England (SWE). The research is being led by Luis Huckstadt, a senior lecturer at the University of Exeter.
Dr Huckstadt explained: “It is hoped that the tracking data will shed light on the changes that seal pups go through in terms of diving capacity, (foraging) behaviour and ecology, throughout their first year.
“It will also give insight in[to] dispersion patterns and potential risks of interactions with areas with high risk of public disturbance.”
The GPS tags, which are light and hydrodynamically streamlined, have been attached to the seal pups’ fur using a thin layer of glue. When the seals go through their annual moult, sometime between December and April, the tags will fall off.
Maggot was rescued in August when she was found at just 48 hours old on a busy beach in Porthtowan after becoming separated from her mother due to public disturbance. Mary was four weeks old when she was rescued on Mother Ivey’s Bay in September, also following public disturbance
Anne van Domburg, senior animal care specialist and research co-ordinator at the Cornish Seal Sanctuary said: “After spending months caring for the pups throughout their rehabilitation here at the sanctuary, quite often we are left in the dark as to what happens to the pups once they are released back into the wild.
“At present, we rely solely on sightings of our seal flipper ID tags, which although [giving] us valuable information, only sheds light on individuals that get spotted by volunteers of the Cornwall Seal Group Research Trust around the coast of SWE.
“This GPS tracking will provide us with an amazing insight into the lives of our pups as they adjust to life in the wild. For us it would be very interesting to see if they return to the area where they were rescued from, and if the release location has any influence on their dispersion pattern.”
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The BSAVA has opened submissions for the BSAVA Clinical Research Abstracts 2026.
