Dolphin Rescue Penzance

On Saturday 7th March 2009 12 students from University College Falmouth and Exeter University Cornwall Campus travelled to Penzance to attend a one day course about how to rescue marine mammals or cetaceans.
The free course was held at The Silver Dolphin Dive Centre at Trinity House in Penzance and is designed to initiate volunteers into the rigors of rescuing creatures that have got into difficulties or have voluntarily beached due to ill health. The Silver Dolphin Centre co-ordinates training for the Cornish Marine Life Rescue group and has already responded to two Common Dolphins being washed up dead on Caerhays Beach. Dave Ball, the owner and instructor at Silver Dolphin said: “During this time of the year the larger Bass fishing boats come closer to the shore, especially in rough weather to escape the huge waves that the Atlantic storms bring. As they move closer to shore they dump the dead dolphins over the side and so they wash up on the beach together.” During the course the students were taught about the continuing problem that fishermen play in the lives of cetaceans around the world. Strandings and beachings in Cornwall are often horrific in nature due to the disregard with which some fishermen treat dolphins and porpoises caught in their nets. Because they don’t want damage their nets they seem to be inclined to cut fins and beaks without a thought for the fate of the creature.
The course is split into two parts; in the morning the students learned about the different parts of marine mammal anatomy, what to watch out for whilst moving the animal and the different species that are present in the water around the British Isles. The afternoon session is concerned with the practicalities of getting an eighty-kilo plastic dolphin called Bubbles back into Penzance Bay.

Image courtesy of: www.visitshetland.com

Despite the weather and the high tide the team managed to release the dummy twice: once from the Western beach slipway and the rocks on Battery Road beach and attracted quite a crowd of curious onlookers.
The team at Silver Dolphin has been saving cetaceans for almost ten years. The Dive centre is run as a business and the cetacean rescue service was formed as a charitable part of the thriving business.
Arranged by Jill Dunn, Community Action Coordinator, the one-day course was filmed by two MA students keen to capture one of the more unusual activities of the young student volunteers.
A mass-stranding course was held on 30th July last year at Marazion. It was a great day giving those that attended, the opportunity to learn what should be done if a mass stranding occurred. This was in response to the worst recorded mass stranding in UK history on 9th June when 26 animals died in Porth Creek near St. Mawes on the Fal estuary.
SILVER DOLPHIN DIVE CENTRE
COMMON DOLPHIN FACTSHEET