It’s may end up being quite a sad tale…

Last time it was a porpoise and this time it’s a dolphin, that has somehow got separated from it’s pod, and has ended up swimming aimlessly in the outer harbour boat channel of Sovereign Harbour.

As you can see from the photo, a lot of wellwishers turned out to watch with their fingers crossed that everything would turn out ok…

The story continues…

The unfortunate dolphin first appeared last night and it was dark before any of the marine welfare agenicies could send someone to look.

In these situations, it can often be more stressful for the animal if you try to intervene, so it’s normal to watch from a distance to see whether it is able to make it’s own way back out to sea.

When, after a couple of tide changes, it was obvious that this wasn’t going to happen, the RNLI inshore boat and a couple of marine rescue workers managed to coax the dolphin out to sea, and monitor it.

The story was picked up by the local Meridian ITV news this evening, and included video footage.

Unlike the porpoise from a few years ago which didn’t survive, the last we heard of the dolphin was that it had made it out to sea and was looking ok, though whether it could find the rest of the pod was uncertain.

I’m sure, like me, you’ll keep your fingers crossed ;-)

2006 was an emotional time for this particular cat lover and a few of our neighbours, as we rescued not 1 but FOUR cats, that had been left to fend for themselves by their previous owners in and around the Key West area of South Harbour.

Though what we discovered as we tried to do the right thing astounded us:

Apparently the Cats Protection League volunteers are no strangers to Sovereign Harbour, as there have been a growing number of stray cats left to rely on handouts, and at the mercy of any sympathetic residents.

It seems that some uncaring members of society want the affections of a cat whilst they live in the marina, but then can’t be bothered to take them when they move.

This is especially true of the many rented properties around the marina.

The four cats we rescued, were in fact all from one house where there had been a broken relationship, and although a number of neighbours took pity on them and fed them for around a year, with Winter coming up it just wasn’t fair to leave them outside.

One of them was also bordering becoming feral which makes it more difficult to re-house them later.

Although there was a lot of tears, and scratched arms, over two journeys we managed to get the cats to the East Grinstead head office of the Cats Protection League.

These 4 cats were very lucky as through persistence and assisted by a number of very helpful local volunteers, we managed to find somewhere with enough space for them all. Cats Protection, like many similar animal welfare organisation, rely on public donations to keep them going.

So next time you go to the local Supermarket, why not by some cat (or dog) food and put them in the provided boxes for local welfare centres.

Thanks on behalf of the animals you’ll be helping

Carole

A PS for Dog Lovers: there will be articles on dogs on this blog as well in the near future, but this issue really annoyed me, so I wrote it first ;-)

Did you know that it contains, amongst other things, some seahorses…
…

Local boat fisherman Martin Wiltshire revealed at a recent meeting of Planet Divers scuba club, that he’s been capturing a number of seahorses in his nets whilst fishing off of Eastbourne.

Amazingly this hasn’t been an isolated incident, and often there are more than one.

Here’s a photo of two seahorses recently captured:

Fortunately for the unfortunate seahorses, Martin is an avid diver and keeps all seahorses on board until he can return to Sovereign Harbour, where he can release them in the calm waters of the marina.

To date  he has released around ten seahorses of a variety of sizes, and the hopes are that they can develop into a breeding colony.

I have some more photos which I will add once I’ve setup a photo gallery feature that I’m currently investigating. 

Let me know what you think,

Wishing you health, success and happiness in everything you do,

Jon