GSPCA 'coping' as six seals rescued in four weeks

An animal rescue charity says one of its "makeshift" shelters is coping while it houses six seal pups rescued in the past four weeks.

The Guernsey Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (GSPCA) said it was looking after the seals in an area that was formerly used to house dogs.

Geoff George, head of marine mammals at the charity, said he was pleased with the improvised shelter. "It's makeshift but it's worked really well, actually," he said.

GSPCA manager Steve Byrne said: "I think there's at least three of them that are going to move to the next stage of rehab, so we are coping - If we had 12 it'd be another matter. "

He added: "We're quite used to adapting different areas for the different animals that we've got, and we've never had seals in there before, but it's actually worked.

"Obviously if we had 30 or 40 seals it'd be a completely different ball game but we have had into double figures before so we are experienced with that."

"We're kind of at capacity now, so we're going to move some of the seals out into other pens in case we get any more," he said.

The GSPCA began work on a new Wildlife Hospital on its site in May last year.

George said this would improve the quality of care they could provide for rescued seals.

"There's going to be separate rooms so that we can quarantine animals, which we can't really do in the temporary facility we have now." he said.

"So if one comes in with anything, they're not going to spread it to everybody else, it's going to make a big difference."

Byrne gave an update on the progress of construction at the new hospital, which is scheduled to open in November.

"It's about five weeks behind technically, because of the weather," he said.

"But we're hopeful that the pups that we get next Christmas will be be going in the new hospital, and the seals we have now will all be in the wild.

"Hopefully there will never be a time that we'll have to turn a seal away," he added.