British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) is a British charity established in 1988 and is a frontline marine mammal response organisation. It utilises a network of trained volunteers around the country to respond to marine mammals potentially in need of assistance via a public 24hr hotline and callout system. The organisation's main areas of operation are in the United Kingdom and its territorial waters; however, the charity has received requests from Canada, the Falkland Islands, Kenya, Ireland, Italy, Kazakhstan, Malta and Abu Dhabi.
BDMLR has developed an Marine Mammal Medic training program and has trained over 20,000 medics worldwide. To complement the Marine Mammal Medic training program, BDMLR has also produced a Marine Mammal Medic Handbook for stranded cetaceans. The organisation specialises primarily in pinniped (seals) and cetacean (porpoises, dolphins and whales) rescue, however they will also respond to stranded sea turtles, sharks, oiled sea birds and large whales entangled at sea.
In 2008 BDMLR received training from the Provincetown Centre for Coastal Studies (PCCS) in Maine in the United States of America, on how to rescue entangled large free swimming whales, and in 2013 adapted these techniques to form the BDMLR Large Whale Disentanglement Team (LWDT).
The organization received media attention in January 2006 due to its response to Willy, a northern bottlenose whale that became disorientated and later stranded after swimming up the River Thames into central London. A large operation began on the morning of Saturday 21 January and lasted until the evening when the whale died prior to being put to sleep by a specialist marine mammal veterinarian due to its poor health.
BDMLR has participated in or led rescue efforts that were launched to save either mass stranded pilot whales or pilot whales in danger of mass stranding at Loch Carnan in South Uist on the Outer Hebrides of Scotland in 2010, at Loch Carnan in South Uist on the Outer Hebrides of Scotland in 2011, at the Kyle of Durness on the North West Corner of the Highlands of Scotland in 2011, at Pittenweem in Fife on the East Coast of Scotland in 2012, at Portmahomack and Dornoch Point on the East Coast of the Highlands of Scotland in 2013 and Staffin Island on the West Coast of Scotland in 2015. In 2018, the BDMLR also took part in monitoring Benny, a beluga whale who had been sighted foraging in the Thames Estuary, and in 2021 managed Wally the walrus during his time at the Isles of Scilly where he unintentionally damaged unmanned dinghies by attempting to haul out on them.
BDMLR opened a purpose-built permanent seal hospital in Cornwall in September 2021. The facility is managed by a vet and supported by volunteer medics to provide care for up to ten seal pups. The centre is also used for trainings.
The charity also supports conservation goals around wildlife disturbance, pollution and climate change. It is a founding member of the Marine Animal Rescue Coalition.
Operation Nettie
In August 2015 BDMLR was contact by the Centre for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, Massachusetts to assist as part of the global response network for large whale disentanglement as member of the Atlantic Large Whale Disentanglement Network (ALWDN) to a Humpback whale in Iceland (nicknamed "Nettie") that was entangled in fisheries debris (at the time suspected, and later confirmed to be monofilament netting panels and lead weighted line from a Gill net array). This was following requests from local whale watching companies and NGOs following failed attempts by local Coast Guard personnel to free the whale. BDMLR, through the International Whaling Commission (IWC), sought permission from the pro-whaling Icelandic government to allow an international rescue team to come to the aid of the whale on welfare grounds. After about a week, permission was granted from the Icelandic government to attempt a rescue of the whale.
The ALWDN decided to form an international response utilising BDMLR manpower and resources backed up by a team member from the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) in Cape Cod near Boston in the US. The following day, the team consisting of 1 member from IFAW and 3 from BDMLR laden with over 150kg of rescue equipment met up in the Icelandic capital Reykjavik in preparation for the following days rescue attempt, but due to the complexity of the entanglement, the size of the search area (Faxa Bay) where the whale was last spotted, and the unpredictable weather in the area the team had allowed a minimum of a week to conduct the rescue.
This operation first involved "Nantucket sleigh rides", which proved to be inefficient as a means of facilitating rescue. The team came up with a new method of attaching a buoy just behind the tail to stop the animal from diving, and bring it to the surface for longer periods, giving the team more opportunities to cut the line when the whale presented its tail. Eventually the team managed to attach the rig to within a metre of the whale's tail and the buoy was quickly pulled into position using a pulley arrangement they had constructed.
The new rig worked and also provided a new separate control line which the team could utilise. The team were now able to pull themselves up to within a metre of the thrashing tail, and each time the whale's tail would breach the surface, careful cuts would be made using the equipment. Eventually the team managed to cut the lines on both sides of the tail stock, and the trailing line from underneath, and the whale was freed.
Cetacea is an infraorder of aquatic mammals belonging to the order Artiodactyla that includes whales, dolphins, and porpoises. Key characteristics are their fully aquatic lifestyle, streamlined body shape, often large size and exclusively carnivorous diet. They propel themselves through the water with powerful up-and-down movement of their tail which ends in a paddle-like fluke, using their flipper-shaped forelimbs to maneuver.
Whales(Balaena) are a widely distributed and diverse group of fully aquatic placental marine mammals. As an informal and colloquial grouping, they correspond to large members of the infraorder Cetacea, i.e. all cetaceans apart from dolphins and porpoises. Dolphins and porpoises may be considered whales from a formal, cladistic perspective. Whales, dolphins and porpoises belong to the order Cetartiodactyla, which consists of even-toed ungulates. Their closest non-cetacean living relatives are the hippopotamuses, from which they and other cetaceans diverged about 54 million years ago. The two parvorders of whales, baleen whales (Mysticeti) and toothed whales (Odontoceti), are thought to have had their last common ancestor around 34 million years ago. Mysticetes include four extant (living) families: Balaenopteridae, Balaenidae, Cetotheriidae, and Eschrichtiidae. Odontocetes include the Monodontidae, Physeteridae, Kogiidae, and Ziphiidae, as well as the six families of dolphins and porpoises which are not considered whales in the informal sense.
Marine mammals are mammals that rely on marine (saltwater) ecosystems for their existence. They include animals such as cetaceans, pinnipeds, sirenians, sea otters and polar bears. They are an informal group, unified only by their reliance on marine environments for feeding and survival.
The fin whale, also known as finback whale or common rorqual and formerly known as herring whale or razorback whale, is a cetacean belonging to the parvorder of baleen whales. It is the second-longest species of cetacean on Earth after the blue whale. The largest reportedly grow to 27.3 m (89.6 ft) long with a maximum confirmed length of 25.9 m (85 ft), a maximum recorded weight of nearly 74 tonnes, and a maximum estimated weight of around 114 tonnes. American naturalist Roy Chapman Andrews called the fin whale "the greyhound of the sea ... for its beautiful, slender body is built like a racing yacht and the animal can surpass the speed of the fastest ocean steamship."
Whale watching is the practice of observing whales and dolphins (cetaceans) in their natural habitat. Whale watching is mostly a recreational activity, but it can also serve scientific and/or educational purposes. A study prepared for International Fund for Animal Welfare in 2009 estimated that 13 million people went whale watching globally in 2008. Whale watching generates $2.1 billion per annum in tourism revenue worldwide, employing around 13,000 workers. The size and rapid growth of the industry has led to complex and continuing debates with the whaling industry about the best use of whales as a natural resource.
Risso's dolphin is a dolphin, the only species of the genus Grampus. Some of the closest related species to these dolphins include: pilot whales, pygmy killer whales, melon-headed whales, and false killer whales.
The North Atlantic right whale is a baleen whale, one of three right whale species belonging to the genus Eubalaena, all of which were formerly classified as a single species. Because of their docile nature, their slow surface-skimming feeding behaviors, their tendencies to stay close to the coast, and their high blubber content, right whales were once a preferred target for whalers. At present, they are among the most endangered whales in the world, and they are protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act and Canada's Species at Risk Act. There are fewer than 370 individuals in existence in the western North Atlantic Ocean—they migrate between feeding grounds in the Labrador Sea and their winter calving areas off Georgia and Florida, an ocean area with heavy shipping traffic. In the eastern North Atlantic, on the other hand—with a total population reaching into the low teens at most—scientists believe that they may already be functionally extinct. Vessel strikes and entanglement in fixed fishing gear, which together account for nearly half of all North Atlantic right whale mortality since 1970, are their two greatest threats to recovery.
Sowerby's beaked whale, also known as the North Atlantic or North Sea beaked whale, is a species of toothed whale. It was the first mesoplodont whale to be described. James Sowerby, an English naturalist and artist, first described the species in 1804 from a skull obtained from a male that had stranded in the Moray Firth, Scotland, in 1800. He named it bidens, which derives from the two teeth present in the jaw, now known to be a very common feature among the genus.
Gray's beaked whale, sometimes known as Haast's beaked whale, the scamperdown whale, or the southern beaked whale, is one of the better-known members of the genus Mesoplodon. This species is fairly gregarious and strands relatively frequently for a beaked whale. In the Māori language, this species is called hakurā or iheihe.
The short-finned pilot whale is one of the two species of cetaceans in the genus Globicephala, which it shares with the long-finned pilot whale. It is part of the oceanic dolphin family (Delphinidae).
The harbour porpoise is one of eight extant species of porpoise. It is one of the smallest species of cetacean. As its name implies, it stays close to coastal areas or river estuaries, and as such, is the most familiar porpoise to whale watchers. This porpoise often ventures up rivers, and has been seen hundreds of kilometres from the sea. The harbour porpoise may be polytypic, with geographically distinct populations representing distinct races: P. p. phocoena in the North Atlantic and West Africa, P. p. relicta in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov, an unnamed population in the northwestern Pacific and P. p. vomerina in the northeastern Pacific.
The false killer whale is a species of oceanic dolphin that is the only extant representative of the genus Pseudorca. It is found in oceans worldwide but mainly in tropical regions. It was first described in 1846 as a species of porpoise based on a skull, which was revised when the first carcasses were observed in 1861. The name "false killer whale" comes from having a skull similar to the orca, or killer whale.
The pygmy killer whale is a poorly known and rarely seen oceanic dolphin. It is the only species in the genus Feresa. It derives its common name from sharing some physical characteristics with the orca also known as the killer whale. It is the smallest cetacean species that has the word "whale" in its common name. Although the species has been known to be extremely aggressive in captivity, this aggressive behavior has not been observed in the wild.
The southern right whale dolphin is a small and slender species of cetacean, found in cool waters of the Southern Hemisphere. It is one of two species of right whale dolphin. This genus is characterized by the lack of a dorsal fin. The other species, the northern right whale dolphin, is found in deep oceans of the Northern Hemisphere and has a different pigmentation pattern than the southern right whale dolphin.
The North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission (NAMMCO) is an "international body for co-operation on conservation, management and study of marine mammals in the North Atlantic."
Cetacean stranding, commonly known as beaching, is a phenomenon in which whales and dolphins strand themselves on land, usually on a beach. Beached whales often die due to dehydration, collapsing under their own weight, or drowning when high tide covers the blowhole. Cetacean stranding has occurred since before recorded history.
The River Thames whale, affectionately nicknamed Willy by Londoners, was a juvenile female northern bottlenose whale which was discovered swimming in the River Thames in central London on Friday 20 January 2006. According to the BBC, she was five metres (16-18ft) long and weighed about twelve tonnes (24,400 lb). The whale appeared to have been lost, as her normal habitat would have been around the coasts of the far north of Scotland and Northern Ireland, and in the seas around the Arctic Ocean. It was the first time the species had been seen in the Thames since records began in 1913. She died from convulsions as she was being rescued shortly after 19:00 GMT on 21 January 2006.
The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) is one of the largest animal welfare and conservation charities in the world. The organization works to rescue individual animals, safeguard populations, preserve habitat, and advocate for greater protections. Brian Davies founded IFAW. IFAW was instrumental in ending the commercial seal hunt in Canada. In 1983 Europe banned all whitecoat harp seals products. This ban helped save over 1 million seals. IFAW operates in over 40 countries.
Davina the Dolphin was a sociable solitary dolphin who resided off the coast in the Folkestone and Hythe area of England for approximately eighteen months. This was a very unusual situation as dolphins normally reside with family groups known as pods, and are not usually seen on their own. She was often spotted swimming in the English Channel.
The interactions between marine mammals and sonar have been a subject of debate since the invention of the technology.
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