{"id":843731,"date":"2026-03-22T23:22:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T23:22:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/843731\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T23:22:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T23:22:13","slug":"young-seal-rescued-from-minster-beach-on-sheppey-by-british-divers-marine-life-rescue-and-kent-wildlife-rescue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/843731\/","title":{"rendered":"Young seal rescued from Minster beach on Sheppey by British Divers Marine Life Rescue and Kent Wildlife Rescue"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A young seal has been rescued from a beach popular with dog walkers after reports children were throwing stones at it.<\/p>\n<p>The animal, thought to be only around five weeks old, was spotted on the stones at Minster Leas on the Isle of <a href=\"https:\/\/premium.kentonline.co.uk\/sheerness\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sheppey<\/a> this afternoon.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"rthmb\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns=\" http:=\"\" viewbox=\"0 0 2561 1794\" alt=\"The young seal was spotted at Minster Leas on Sheppey this afternoon\" data-root=\"\/_media\/img\/\" data-path=\"C6O1SSBKOLSKJE2ZDZBF.jpg\" data-ar=\"1.43\"\/>The young seal was spotted at Minster Leas on Sheppey this afternoon<\/p>\n<p>The seal was at the bottom end of the beach.<\/p>\n<p>A member of the public reported the pup to the British Divers Marine Life Rescue and a medic from<a href=\"https:\/\/kentonline.co.uk\/sittingbourne\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> Sittingbourne<\/a> arrived at the scene at around 2pm.<\/p>\n<p>Medic David Beal then contacted Kent Wildlife Rescue Service, based on Sheppey, for assistance.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"rthmb\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns=\" http:=\"\" viewbox=\"0 0 2882 2016\" alt=\"British Divers Marine Life Rescue and Kent Wildlife Rescue attended\" data-root=\"\/_media\/img\/\" data-path=\"3NKH2TYP3XHUYW30PX6A.jpg\" data-ar=\"1.43\"\/>British Divers Marine Life Rescue and Kent Wildlife Rescue attended<\/p>\n<p>The charity\u2019s founder Lorraine March said: \u201cI am also a British Divers Marine Life Rescue medic so I attended to assist David as it was his first full call-out.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe checked the seal over and everything seemed quite healthy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe weighed him and he was 23kg which is not a bad weight, so nothing concerned us about him.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"rthmb\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns=\" http:=\"\" viewbox=\"0 0 2893 2086\" alt=\"People watched on as the seal was rescued\" data-root=\"\/_media\/img\/\" data-path=\"2U45CT2SVERM8PMKAR42.jpg\" data-ar=\"1.39\"\/>People watched on as the seal was rescued<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut there were reports of children throwing stones and people were ignoring our advice to keep their dogs back, so we made the decision to move him to a safer, quieter spot.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The seal was released further up the coast just before 6pm, where Lorraine said they watched him go back into the water \u201cquite happily\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The Thames Estuary is home to two types of seals, one is the grey seal and can be seen lying on beaches waiting for their food to go down.<\/p>\n<p>The other, and smaller of the two, are common seals, which are also known as harbour seals.<\/p>\n<p>It is estimated the Estuary is home to 2,866 grey and 797 harbour seals, according to Zoological Society of London.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A young seal has been rescued from a beach popular with dog walkers after reports children were throwing&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":843732,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3847],"tags":[933,2081,495,70,36785,16,15,1717],"class_list":["post-843731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-animals","tag-isle-of-sheppey","tag-kent","tag-science","tag-sittingbourne","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-wildlife"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116275402856654766","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=843731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/843732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=843731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=843731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=843731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}