• After the Event

• The Event

On Wednesday, 19th of May 2021 at 18.30, we will be holding a webinar in aid of the British Divers Marine Life Rescue. The webinar will be held via Zoom and available by invitation only. The link to join will be sent out to each kind supporter with the automatic JustGiving thank you email (so please check your inbox). We would like to ask for £5 minimum donation.

The organisers are Melanie Dobromylskyj and James Barnett, and the guest speaker list includes none other than Alan Knight, Chairman of BDMLR, as well as Dan Jarvis (BDMLR), Rob Deaville (CSIP), Natalie Waddington (BDMLR), James Barnett (Axiom Veterinary Laboratories and Cornwall Marine Pathology Team) and Mark Wessels (Finn Pathologists).

As a sponsor you will also have the opportunity to ask our guest speakers some questions.

The webinar will also be available to watch at a later date, if you cannot make the live streaming session.

Any problems please contact either magdalena.reynolds@axiomvetlab.co.uk, Melanie.Dobromylskyj@finnpathologists.com or james.barnett@axiomvetlab.co.uk.

Hope you can join us!

• The Charity

https://bdmlr.org.uk/

British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) was formed in 1988, when a few like-minded divers got together in response to a mass mortality of common seals in the Wash area of East Anglia, to do what they could for the rescue effort in response to the Phocine Distemper Virus epidemic that resulted in thousands of deaths.

Since 1988, BDMLR has been involved in the rescue of marine wildlife after every major marine disaster, including the Braer shipwreck in Shetland, the Sea Empress grounding in Milford Haven, and the Napoli shipwreck in Dorset.

Although seal rescue has remained a major component of the BDML's work, with medics rescuing animals in all seasons around the UK, it has become progressively more involved in the response to stranded and entangled cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises).

BDMLR were founder members of the Marine Animal Rescue Coalition (MARC), an affiliation of organisations with an active interest and involvement in the management of marine mammal strandings in the UK, with a primary focus of improving the response to live cetacean strandings. This has been achieved through sharing information and opinions, encouraging training and equipment, and consideration of the options available for the disposition of beached animals in the context of UK strandings patterns.

Every year, BDMLR trains over 1000 volunteer Marine Mammal Medics and has 20 whale rescue pontoons located at strategic points throughout the UK, waiting to help stranded whales and dolphins.

• The Guest Speakers

Alan Knight is the founder and CEO of International Animal Rescue (IAR). Alan graduated from Sussex University with an Honours degree in Biological Sciences. He has devoted his life to animal welfare and was originally the Chairman of the trustees of IAR before resigning to take up a full time position with the Charity in 1999. Alan lives in Sussex with his life-long partner Liz who runs a sanctuary from their home for unwanted and elderly cats. Alan is a board member of several other charities including being Chairman of British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) an organisation that provides a rescue service for marine wildlife in the UK, trustee of the Marine connection and President of Catastrophes Cat rescue.   Alan was awarded an OBE (Officer of the order of the British Empire) in the 2006 Queens Birthday Honours for services to animal welfare.

Dan Jarvis is a marine biologist who has been involved in wildlife conservation since 2002 when he began volunteering for BDMLR and Cornwall Wildlife Trust Marine Strandings Network (CWTMSN).  He was a founding member of Cornwall Seal Group Research Trust in 2004 and serves as the Secretary and a Trustee. He worked for over a decade at the Cornish Seal Sanctuary rehabilitating sick and injured seal pups back to health for return to the wild, while leading their conservation and scientific programmes.  In 2016 Dan began working for BDMLR as the Welfare Development and Field Support Officer and he also volunteers in the role of Area Coordinator for Cornwall and Scilly. Dan is the youngest ever recipient of the Mandy McMath Conservation Award in 2018, given annually by the European Cetacean Society, and was also the first to be chosen primarily for work with seals and in the field of animal welfare.

Natalie Waddington qualified as a vet in 2016 when she graduated from the Royal Veterinary College. She worked in small animal practice for three years alongside volunteering with BDMLR, mainly assisting with the rescue and rehabilitation of grey seal pups at BDMLR's seal pup hospital in Cornwall. In spring 2019 she became the hospital’s manager and the charity’s national Veterinary Support Coordinator. In summer 2020 she was added to the charity’s list of Veterinary Consultants. Natalie has been involved with the care of hundreds of grey seal pups, attended numerous live cetacean strandings, as well as advising on incidents happening all over the country. She is also heavily involved with volunteer education, with the particular aim of training more veterinary professionals in the basics of marine mammal rescue medicine.

Rob Deaville is the Project Manager of the UK Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme (CSIP) and has been in this role since 2006. The CSIP is a collaborative research programme responsible for the investigation of UK stranded cetaceans, marine turtles and some elasmobranch species under contract to the UK government. Rob co-ordinates the delivery of CSIP contract objectives across the UK, including overall management of the programme, liaison with funders, with/between partner organisations, other stakeholders and the UK media and general public. He also co-ordinates the regional recovery and post-mortem examination of stranded animals and facilitates the underpinning science carried out by the programme. He has over 20 years’ experience in strandings response, recovery and investigation, both in the UK and internationally.

Mark Wessels qualified from the Royal Veterinary College in 1986 and worked in practice for 12 years doing mixed predominantly large animal work in a number of practices. In 1998 he joined the Veterinary Laboratories Agency at Preston where he was involved in large animal disease investigation and diagnostics dealing predominantly with ruminants. During his time with VLA he studied for Fellowship of the Royal College of Pathologists specialising in large animal pathology. He has published widely in the field of large animal and mammalian exotic pathology. Mark joined Finn Pathologists in May 2014 as Head of Histopathology. His main interests lie in ruminant pathology especially infectious and degenerative diseases, farm animal diagnostics and marine mammal pathology. 

James Barnett has been involved with marine mammals for nearly 30 years.  In the 1990s, he worked as vet for the Cornish Seal Sanctuary and the Sea Life Centres and, after moving into lab work, he continued his interests in marine mammal rescue as initially a trustee and also as a veterinary consultant to BDMLR.   In 2008, while a Veterinary Investigation Officer for the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency in Cornwall, his marine mammal interests switched primarily to pathology and, after joining Axiom to set up the farm animal diagnostics service in 2013, he has continued to necropsy stranded marine mammals around the Cornish coast as a volunteer veterinary pathologist affiliated to CSIP and CWTMSN.  He is an honorary lecturer at the University of Exeter and, in 2018, was awarded the Zoological Society of London’s Silver Medal for his contribution to the public understanding and appreciation of zoology.

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