A great soul left this earth plane at the weekend. On Sunday evening, 17 November 2024, Jan Bevington, died after a long struggle with illness. Jan was best known as the founder of Hillswick Wildlife Sanctuary which she created after finding a common seal pup on the beach outside her home almost 40 years ago and which soon earned her the title “Selkiewife”. Jan was born in post-war Preston, England, in September 1947. She arrived in Shetland aged just 23 having spent three years living in the USA during the turbulent late ‘60s where she was deeply influenced by the hippie revolution and the peace movement, famously attending the decade’s two most well-known music festivals, Woodstock and Altamont. She moved to Shetland in 1971 after working as a social worker in the north of England following her return from the USA, and landed a job at the St Magnus Bay Hotel in Hillswick. There she met and married Tony Morgan with whom she bore three children, Gavin, Amy and Holly, and in 1976 the couple purchased the former knitwear factory at The Booth, where Shetland’s oldest pub was still operational. In their hands, the pub became a huge success during the oil era serving the vast number of construction workers who descended on the islands, alongside the local clientele. The couple separated in 1982 when Jan took over the reins of the pub as a single mother with three young children. Under her energetic stewardship The Booth became legendary for its music nights and fancy dress events, which are still talked about to this day. Jan had always been a great lover of wildlife and nature, and when she came across a premature seal pup being washed up on the beach in Hillswick after a busy night in the pub in May 1987, she realised her true purpose in life had found her. Rumour spread about what she was doing and by the end of that summer she was caring for seven seal pups…and the rest is history. Initially her efforts to rescue seals attracted a mixed reception, with some members of the islands’ traditional fishing community regarding seals as a threat to their livelihoods and frowning on her new found vocation. But Jan persisted and soon found herself on board the Wildlife Response Coordinating Committee (WRCC), which managed the islands’ oil spill response plan on behalf of the council and the locally based oil industry. There she met and became friendly with the famous Shetland naturalist Bobby Tulloch who persuaded her to take over his role looking after otters. Having sat through an entire committee meeting, he approached her to pop the question. When she agreed, he plucked a sleeping otter cub from under his jumper and placed it under hers, adding a new role for the growing sanctuary. Initially Jan only had her children’s paddling pool to work with and kept the seals in an old cooperage with half a roof, and no electricity or running water. Her pleas for financial help went unheeded until the Braer oil spill in January 1993, when the terminal operator BP told her: “Our purses are open”. During the disaster response Jan found herself the centre of worldwide media attention, and accommodating more than 350 volunteers, as well as 600 members of the world’s press who descended on The Booth wanting to capture images of stricken seals and otters. On the eve of the oil spill Jan had been ready to close The Booth as the pub was on the verge of bankruptcy. However the emergency allowed her to improve the animal care facilities with help from the council and the oil industry, and brought in enough donations from around the world for her to convert the pub into a vegetarian café, which she operated with volunteers, serving meals in return for donations to the sanctuary. Da Böd Café became a roaring success after a slow start and operated until 2009 when Jan decided she had had enough of spending her summers serving the public and wanted to spend more time outdoors. In the year of the Braer disaster, Jan met local journalist Pete Bevington, who had just returned to Shetland after spending two years in Australia. Having decided she never wanted anything to do with another journalist after her experience during the oil spill, it was ironic that the two should fall in love and they married in 1996. The couple worked closely together running the sanctuary and the café with volunteers arriving to help every summer from all corners of the world, while Pete worked with the Shetland News website to provide the couple with a regular income. In 2014 Jan travelled to the House of Lords in London to receive a lifetime achievement award from the International Fund for Animal Welfare, which drew more media attention that thoroughly embarrassed her. That same year the WRCC offered to provide financial assistance to improve the animal care facilities and after several years of negotiations, they raised more than £450,000 from the oil industry, the local council, the European LEADER Fund and the wildlife charity World Animal Protection to secure the sanctuary’s future. The couple also ran a successful fundraising campaign that continues to support the sanctuary with donations from kind and generous people in Shetland, the UK mainland and around the world. Construction finally began in the winter of 2020, but within weeks of work starting Jan became ill and ended up in hospital with heart problems. She never fully recovered her health and last year was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease. Despite a huge effort to keep going, she finally passed away on Sunday night at home in the arms of her beloved husband. Jan’s devotion to wildlife and her deep integrity to her belief in the importance of nurturing nature in all its forms had a profound influence on the many people who came into contact with her. She kept her dream of a fully functional wildlife sanctuary alive until it became a reality, and was saddened that she herself was not able to enjoy the fruits of her efforts. However her dream of creating a wildlife community has flowered with help arriving from near and far to ensure Hillswick Wildlife Sanctuary has a long term future and her legacy is secured. #selkie

So the grey seal pup season in Shetland began for Hillswick Wildlife Sanctuary today with the arrival of an unusually early moulted pup first spotted in the shallows at Sumburgh's West Voe beach by Stephen Wilkie and his wife yesterday morning. Scottish SPCA inspector Vhairi Graham went to look, but was unable to act because he was still in the water and it was getting dark. This morning a call came in from Duncan Swainston who was walking on the beach taking a break from a party in the Sumburgh Hotel when he and his 16 year old daughter Isla came across the same seal hauled out above the tideline. This time it was SSPCA inspector Siân Graham who drove down and collected the mysterious seal with its distinctive white mark on its snout. On close examination we could see his eyes were sunken and he was quite shaky. Later it became apparent just how congested he is. So we are keeping him dry and in the warmth, and have given him fluids and an antibiotic in the hope that the healing process can kick in straight away. They're tough creatures, these grey seals, but even they can go down if they are unwell. It is strange to find an almost fully moulted seal - the white patch is his pre-moult fur and he has a bit on his rear flippers too - when we have yet to hear reports of white coats on Shetland's coastline. He's an earlybird and Isla Swainston has named him Smudge, due to the white blob. Fingers crossed we can get him on the mend and back out to sea. #selkie #sealpup #greyseal #sumburgh #shetland #wildliferescue

It is with great sadness we that we have to report the death of beautiful young Bretta the otter who arrived on Wednesday after being found on the road in Nesting having been on her own for at least two days without mum and food. Though she was a good-sized otter cub, she was already struggling on arrival. We noticed her walking was very wobbly, she had difficult staying upright and lay flat much of the time. The most concerning factor was the colour of her poo - jet black, a sign of her system shutting down. We have brought otters back to life in the past from such a condition and we tried everything we knew with Bretta, including carrying her around inside a shirt for the comfort of bodily contact, and taking her outside to feel the fresh air in her lungs. We did all we could to encourage her to keep moving and not to shut down, but in the end she just gave up on life. We share our grief at these moments with everyone who has shown such kindness towards the sanctuary and concern for the animals in our care, especially those who have so kindly donated for Bretta's ongoing rehabilitation. We assure you the money will be spent on the other creatures in our care. May she rest in peace. #draatsie

Strange coincidence? No sooner had we posted about Erik the otter sculpture than we received a call about this wee lassie. Willie Simpson from Brettabister in Nesting phoned to ask if we would be interested in looking after a young otter. That's what we do, we replied, so Willie drove up to deliver the cub to our door. He explained how two days ago while driving locally he had seen in his rear car mirror a small otter creeping into a field from the road and that the otter had swiftly disappeared. Then this morning his cousin Robert Gray found her in the middle of the road beside Scudills Wick in South Nesting Bay, picked her up and took her to Willie. Bretta, as Willie and his wife called her after their home township, is a good size cub with a reasonably plump belly so she can't have lost her mum too long ago. Whether mum was killed or she abandoned Bretta, as otters sometimes do if they feel they have too many to rear, we will never know. Certainly there have been no reports of roadkill in that area - though there have been far too many elsewhere. That said, Bretta was very shut down when she arrived, which was a cause for great concern. Otters stress very easily when they come into captivity and her behaviour and her bowel movements were definite signs. However she guzzled her formula milk after we let her have a moment to settle in to her new surroundings. And the next time we handled her she was super aggressive, all of which is a good sign off her coming back to herself. She is far from out of the woods yet , so we will be keeping vigil through the next few nights to make sure she makes a full recovery from her ordeal. Meanwhile, if anyone would like to join the generous folk who support the sanctuary's work financially and thus allow us to care for these beautiful wild creatures, please visit https://www.hillswickwildlifesanctuary.org/donate/ Thankyou! #draatsie #otter #wildliferescue #nesting #shetland

We’ve had an update about the otter cub that ran off after its sibling and mother were killed on the main road running through Weisdale on Wednesday morning. Katrina Williamson messaged to say she had found a young otter floating in the loch near the site of the accident. It was her husband Adam who first found the three otters curled up together on the road at dawn. Assuming they were all dead, he approached them to pull them off the road, when one opened its eyes and ran off towards the loch, looking quite wobbly. It would appear it was too badly injured to survive after all. Such a shame and another excuse to please ask drivers to slow down and keep their eyes peeled for wildlife, especially during the hours of twilight. Thankyou Katrina for the photographs. #draatsie

This mother and cub were found on the road at Weisdale this morning. A second cub was with them, but ran off when approached. The cub looks big enough to survive on its own, but what a tragic start to independence. This is the time of year when the time otters are moving g around coincides with Shetland’s “rush hour” so please take care and drive slowly when travelling to and from work. Thankyou. Thanks to Judith Anderson who sent the photos and to all the people that have offered to help. #draatsie

We've had a bit of a mysterious adventure at the sanctuary this past fortnight. In the evening after we had just released our two common seal pups Frankie and Munro back to the wild, Phil Harris from Shetland Seabird Tours - The Noss Boat arrived with a strange otter who was in a very poor way. He had been approaching people in Trondra as if he was tame. When we let him into one of our pens, he was so weak he could hardly walk and kept falling over to one side. We placed a bowl of mashed up fish in front of him and watched as he furiously tucked in, not really expecting him to survive the night. By the next day he had defied our expectations and was tearing up fish and swimming in his pool. We also noticed he had some fresh scarring around his right nostril, so perhaps he had been in a fight. We named him Bramble and carried on feeding him, but after a few days we found uneaten fish in his pen. We checked his box...no otter. We looked for possible escape routes. There were none we could see. Had he been abducted by aliens? A week later we received a call from the Scottish SPCA saying there was a tame otter curled up in an outhouse in a neighbour's house. Did we know anything about it? SSPCA inspector Debbie Anderson collected him and brought him back, whereupon he launched straight into a juicy haddock, eating it head first. He was starving. We still have no idea how he escaped. Our only theory is that he climbed the fencing and crawled out through the netting above the pen, which seems an incredible feat...but then otters are incredible animals. Just in case he tries it again, we have put in extra security and trust that we can build him up and let him back into the natural world where he belongs. Fingers crossed. #draatsie #otter #wildlife #shetland

The weather was perfect at the weekend to release Frankie and Munro, our two beautiful common seal pups, after months getting fat in the sanctuary. It was amazing to see their characters shining through right to the end. Gung ho Frankie, who survived three days without mum on Rerwick beach after being born three weeks premature, has been a feisty fellow from the start. He took longer to learn to eat independently but after five months in Hillswick he had increased his weight six times over. When it came to the release he was a real struggle to catch, so it was no surprise when he was tipped out on the beach he took off like a rocket. Munro was always more hesitant and true to form, he approached the open sea with caution, testing the water of this big new world. But it didn't take him long to join his playmate exploring their underwater playground and we watched with delight as they disappeared into the distance for a new start to life in the wild. Go boys go! #selkie #sealpups #commonseals #harbourseals #sealrelease #shetland #intothewild

There's no question these two young guns are ready to go out into the big wide world. They have been piling on the pounds over the past few weeks and are now both weighing in at more than 30 kilos. Only a few weeks ago Frankie would still only take fish from Lynn's hand, but now there's no stopping him and he's hoovering up the herring like it's going out of fashion. And what a live wire! When he gets excited he's a sight to see, almost leaping out of the pool and jumping over a bewildered Munro. To think Frankie came in three weeks premature in early May and Munro was just a few days old when he turned up a month later. Well it's time for the wild, boys! #selkie #sealpups #commonseals #harbourseals #shetland

Elder the otter cub from there Westside is a real survivor. You can tell by the speed at which she has taken to water and has advanced from fish porridge to eating whole fish. A very fast learner. She's pretty much ready now to move into an outdoor pen. It's getting wintery outside, but her thick fur will keep her warm as the temperatures plummet over the months ahead. #draatsie #ottercub #wildliferehab #shetland