Hi there,

On Sunday in Grouville Bay a young Grey Seal pup of less than a week old was found and photographed and sent by aircraft to the GSPCA in Guernsey.

My colleagues on the French mainland have been finding numerous individuals near us on the French coast opposite us

and looking after them at:-

CHENE in Normandy in a Seal rehabilitation centre where my colleagues look after the pups then when ready relaese them using satellite tracking devices study their movements after release.

We have been doing research with CRMM at La Rochelle at:-

on the rapidly expanding Seal population of the north French coast and Cecile Vincent has tracked many individuals

by satellite around our coasts.She hopes to capture some more seals in the new year to fit wwith satellite transmitters.

UNfortunately the GSPCA hope to send the seal to Norfolk rather than let our local specilists treat it in our centres like CHENE in Normandy and at Oceanopolis in Brest in Brittany as well as in the Somme estuary.

I am the local contact for the regional group the Groupe Mammalogique Normand here in the Channel Isles and I am in contact with Jean Francois Elder in Normandy also of the GMN who is a regional authority on our local popluation of seals also in contact with Cecile Vincent a top European specialist based in France.

In Jersey now 2 Swallows at La Rocque heading north and 4 at Noirmont!

Bertram.E.B.BREE in mild Jersey Swallowing hard!

--- sustainableguernsey@gmail.com wrote:

From: Richard Lord <sustainableguernsey@gmail.com>
To: cienviron@googlegroups.com
Subject: [CIEnviron] What the sea brings forth
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:37:34 +0000

Commercial crab and lobster fisherman Clive Brown found what looked like a block of wood covered in goose barnacles floating off Guernsey's south coast today.  When he retrieved the bulky mass of goose barnacles he found they were covering a piece of communication equipment.  The number 5829-99-519-7782 written on the equipment brings one to the ISO Group website on Google.  http://5820.iso-group.com/NSNDetail/5820-99-519-7782/5820995197782.aspx  

ISO Group supplies spare parts logistics for the defence industry.  I spoke with the US office and all I could learn was that the equipment had a UK code.  Clive removed about 40 lbs. of goose barnacles from the equipment.  He found also four Columbus or Gulf weed crabs, Planes minutus, which are a warm water species, in amongst the goose barnacles.