We drove all the way to the southern tip of Shetland's mainland this morning after receiving a call from Jan Tylsar about this young grey seal, who he was able to get quite close to in order to check that it was OK. Though it looked healthy and a decent size, we thought it best to go and have a look for ourselves, even though it was a 60 mile drive from Hillswick. We had a lovely walk from Scatness, but there was no sign of any seal when we found the cove where it had hauled out. No doubt it was just exhausted after the recent storms and just needed a rest. With the winter weather bringing rough seas we're likely to see more seals like this needing to haul out and rest. Please contact the sanctuary if you come across any, though we may just ask someone to monitor them rather than just bringing them into captivity. #selkie #storm

It has really been a heartbreaking day here at Hillswick Wildlife Sanctuary. Last weekend we noticed that both our remaining two underweight seal pups from Orkney were showing signs of a similar problem as Sandy who passed away last week. We immediately started them on an intensive course of antibiotics and fluids following advice from our local vets, treating them every three hours. We were confident that both Frankie and Stevie were recovering well throughout this week. They had more energy and all the other signs indicated that they were improving. So it was a devastating shock to walk into the seal unit at 6am this morning to find that they had both passed away. We are determined to find out what the cause of death for all three Orkney pups is, so we have already taken them for a post mortem and hopefully will have some results fairly soon. May they both rest in peace xxx #selkie

Meanwhile a third seal pup arrived at the sanctuary from Orkney on this morning's NorthLink Ferries boat. Stevie was rescued by BDMLR Orkney - Public three days ago after being found alone and malnourished on a rocky beach. A female, she is a lot stronger (and noisier) than Sandy was, and might prove a match for the equally noisy Frankie who can be heard in the background of this video. Already moulting, she is eagerly tucking into fish pieces and if she carries on at this rate she should start putting on weight after coming in at 13.5 kilos. #selkie #sealpup #greyseal #orkney #shetland #wildliferescue

It is with considerable sadness that we have to report that the beautiful young grey seal pup Sandy who arrived from Orkney last week died yesterday. She was extremely thin on arrival and had probably never been fed by her mother, so did not have the benefit of the all-important colostrum that contains so much of the goodness that helps any new born thrive. And though she ate enthusiastically when she was rescued, she gradually faded as she lost her ability to fight to stay alive. Her story reflects the importance of those early feeds from mum and the challenge we face keeping pups alive in these circumstances. May her spirit swim freely now she has gone. #selkie #sealpup #greyseal #shetland

New arrivals at the sanctuary this weekend, all the way from Orkney. The BDMLR Orkney - Public team rescued these two underweight, skinny grey seal pups last week and held them for 48 hours to treat them with antibiotics before sending them up to us on the NorthLink Ferries boat. Sandy the whitecoat was found at Sandwick Bay on South Ronaldsay, monitored for 24 hours for any sign of a mother and then brought in for treatment for an eye infection. Frankie - not the same as our common seal of the same name during the summer - was fully moulted when found on Scapa beach, but very thin with an infected flipper. By the time they arrived on the boat they were noisy and feisty and eager for food. We cleaned them up and rehydrated them, and were astonished at the speed they started wolfing down the fish...unaided! So aside from completing the course of antibiotics, our job with these two is very straightforward. We cut up pieces of herring, lay them on the floor (which they find easier than in a bowl), and down the hatch they go. At this rate it won't be any time before they are piling on the pounds and heading for the outside pools. If you would like to join the kind and generous people who support our work and help us raise these two gorgeous seal pups, please visit our website at https://www.hillswickwildlifesanctuary.org/donate/ Thankyou one and all. We could not continue this labour of love without your help. #selkie #sealpups #greyseals #orkney #shetland #wildliferescue

The work at Hillswick Wildlife Sanctuary continues despite the sadness of the recent passing of its founder Jan and thanks to the efforts of our new animal care team and the wonderful network of people in Shetland who support our work in so many different ways. On Saturday afternoon as Storm Bert was building up in strength, Barbara Herman and her partner Raymond found this lovely whitecoat - a week or so old grey seal pup - languishing on a beach in the island of Fetlar. Tired and lonely with no sign of mum and not fully fed, he needed to be brought in to our care, especially with the violent storm brewing. The journey from Fetlar to the sanctuary requires two ferry trips, the first to Yell, then a half hour drive across that island, and another ferry to the Shetland mainland. The drama of the seal's rescue was magnified when our chief carer Lynn Young lost her driver's side windscreen wiper in the middle of the howling gale and driving rain and had to abandon her mission. With that Debra Mallett stepped in and collected the seal from the Gutcher ferry terminal and drove it to the Ulsta terminal, from where the ferry took the pup to the mainland where Scottish SPCA inspector Debbie Caithness did the final leg of the journey to Hillswick. Inevitably the seal is exhausted and needs to rest, but Lynn has already started tube feeding to boost strength and help the recovery process. She and her family have named the seal Storm, highly appropriate under the circumstances. She is a female and we trust that she will thrive in our care, and that the redness around her left eye will recede over the next few days. If you would like to join the kind and generous people who support the work we do here at Hillswick Wildlife Sanctuary and help Storm on her healing path, please visit our website at https://www.hillswickwildlifesanctuary.org/donate/ #selkie #sealpup #greyseal #fetlar #shetland #wildliferescue

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