Dogs visit seal sanctuary to cheer them up during lockdown

The team have also played music over their speaker system to help to keep the animals calm and happy during the pandemic. 
29 May 2020

A group of dogs have been visiting a seal sanctuary to keep the rescued sea animals company and reduce loneliness during the lockdown.

Staff at The Cornish Seal Sanctuary usually welcome ore than 100,000 people a year to their centre but they have closed during the pandemic, leaving the animals they care for increasingly isolated and lonely.

In an attempt to keep the seals engaged, the workers have been taking their dogs for daily visits to the sanctuary.

Tamara Cooper, curator at the Cornish Seal Sanctuary, said: "It was definitely a real treat for the seals to see the dogs, it has been such a long time since they have seen anyone other than the team so they were definitely intrigued and interested in saying hello from afar.

"As well as our guests we have dogs on site every day when we are open and both the seals and the dogs are always very interested in seeing each other so it was great to be able to give the animals a bit of normality."

Staff member at the Cornish Seal Sanctuary visiting the centre with their dog Credit: Cornish Seal Sanctuary

The team have also played music over their speaker system to help to keep the animals calm and happy during the pandemic.

Staff have also set up a fundraising page to help with the £23,000 bill it costs every month to keep the charity going.

The Cornish Seal Sanctuary which is occupied by Humboldt penguins, common seals and sea lines rescues and rehabilitates grey seal pups that have suffered from malnourishment or separation from around the Cornish coastline.

The centre has so far raised over £28,000 of their 486,000 target.

On their JustGiving page they wrote: ""With the Sanctuary still being closed, and with no certain opening date, we are struggling without the vital revenue from our guests.

"We are now entering our third month without guests, and need your support more than ever."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in