I was down in St Andrews bay in South Georgia with some mates and we could hear a funny noise, it turned out to be a elephant seal pup, it had become stuck in an underground stream and was calling for its mum, she could not get to it and had enough sense not to go into the same hole in the ice.
As a group six of us went on a rescue mission, 2 to keep the mother at bay and four to get the pup out of the hole that it was in.
We managed to coax the the pup onto a tarp (it took nearly an hour) that we thought that would take the weight (they are not exactly light and we didn't want to get our smell on the pup in case the mum rejected it) and lifted the pup out to its mum, it was a very happy moment when it was re-united with its mum an an abiding memory
.
The mum then proceeded to chase us off and once everything was over and about fifteen minutes had passed we had the harbour master (a member of greenpeace) congratulate us. :wave:
We didn't need it we were on a buzz for our good deed of the day. :-D
The major thing to remember I suppose is, if you come across an animal that is alone and young
DON'T TOUCH IT WITH YOUR BARE HANDS IF AT ALL . If you do and the mother returns she may reject it because of your smell or even attack if she gets back whilst you are handling the youngster.
We were given a state of grace to remove the pup from a bad situation by its mother, the majority of the time this may not be the case.
Andy this is not part of the competition, it was all the reward that was needed in itself.