The Day of the Very Large Inflatable (What you shouldn’t do to a dolphin) [Vetsim Part 3]

The Thursday evening held lectures on Marine Mammal rescue preparing us for the next day. Unfortunately, they lost our attention immediately with the words “You don’t need to take notes. This will all be in your information booklet.” Maybe someday teachers and lecturers will learn not to say that!

The next day was the fun, practical side we were all looking forward to. We were greeted by a courtyard full of semi-inflated seal pups. Separating into groups of ten (which then grew due to group miscounting), my group headed into a room which was severely lacking in water for a marine mammal course.

Faced with three, large, inflatable whales, we went on to learn what to do if faced with a beached whale. We spent a good amount of time carefully moving the air-filled whale and sliding the pontoon underneath. Next, we went on to do something similar with a slowly deflating dolphin. The instructor had to keep blowing it back up and we established that you should never try blowing up a real dolphin! After walking around in a circle holding an inflatable dolphin in a folded tarpaulin we were to go on to seal rescue.

To rescue a seal pup you basically have to distract them then jump on them. (Carefully obviously!) For such small things, they’re apparently very strong. So, we spent a while jumping on semi-deflated seals and learning how to pick them up carefully.

Therefore, I am now a qualified Marine Mammal Medic! Theoretically, I could be called out at any time to help save a seal, dolphin or whale. I don’t know if this will happen but that really would be an experience...