A seal which was rescued after getting into difficulty near Hilbre Island has sadly died.
A team from the RSPCA, Wirral Coastguard and Wirral Council rangers rescued the seal, which had become stranded by Little Eye – the smallest of the three islands off the coast of West Kirby.
The struggling seal was first spotted on Wednesday by a birdwatcher, who alerted the authorities.
Four RSPCA officers, members of the coastguard and Wirral Council ranger, Matt Thomas, assisted with the rescue, which involved getting the seal into a trailer. Pig boards were used to persuade and guide the seal up the ramp.
The seal was then taken to the RSPCA’s Stapeley Grange Wildlife Centre in Cheshire, where sadly his health deteriorated and he died a few hours later.
RSPCA inspector Anthony Joynes said: “It is very sad that the seal did not survive, but we did all that we could to give him a chance to live.
“It is likely he was suffering from an underlying illness as he was also very dehydrated and underweight.
“This was a difficult rescue and we only had a short time window to do it with losing day light. We are very grateful to the ranger and the coast guard for their help, as this was a great joint effort.
“Although there wasn’t had the happiest of endings, at least we prevented the seal from suffering any further and sometimes that’s all you can do.”
There is a well-established colony of Atlantic Grey Seals off the coast of Hilbre Island. Numbers of seals vary depending on the time of year but there can be as many as 300 during the summer months.
According to the Friends of Hilbre Island, the earliest positive identification of a Grey Seal in the Dee Estuary was in 1909 and by 1928 there were about 10. The highest ever count on record was 825 on the 24th June 2010.
