British Divers Marine Life Rescue

British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) is a British charity established in 1988 and is the United Kingdoms leading marine mammal rescue organisation. The organisation's main areas of operation are within the United Kingdom and its territorial waters, however are often requested by international governments and charitable organisations to provide assistance and training in marine mammal rescue due to their vast wealth of knowledge, experience and available equipment.

BDMLR has developed an internationally renowned Marine Mammal Medic training program and has trained over 17,000 medics worldwide. To complement the Marine Mammal Medic training program BDMLR has also produced a Marine Mammal Medic handbook (currently on its 7th edition), that is used globally by various GO’s and NGO’s to deal with stranded cetaceans.

The organisation specialises primarily in pinniped (seals) and cetacean (porpoises, dolphins and whales) rescue, however will responded to stranded sea turtles, basking sharks, otters, injured or oiled sea birds and entangled marine mammals.

In 2008 BDMLR received specialised 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 after developing these techniques specifically for British waters formed the British Divers Marine Life Rescue - Large Whale Disentanglement Team (BDMLR – LWDT) made up entirely of trained volunteers ready to respond to entangled cetaceans in British and European waters.

The organisation was the subject of widespread media coverage in January 2006 due to its efforts in leading the attempted rescue of a northern bottle-nosed whale (the "River Thames whale") which became disorientated and distressed after swimming up the River Thames into central London. A large rescue operation began on the morning of Saturday 21 January and lasted until the evening when the whale died.

In more recent years amongst the hundreds of call out each year attended by BDMLR, the organisation spearheaded the major 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 Hebridies of Scotland in 2010, once again at Loch Carnan in South Uist on the Outer Hebridies 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.

OPERATION NETTIE

In August 2015 BDMLR was contact by the Centre for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, Maine in the US 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 (Megaptera novaeangliae) in Iceland 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 NGO's following a failed but valiant attempts by local Coast Guard personnel to free the free swimming but fatally entangled creature. Several days of anxiety passed following the initial call for help whilst 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 due to the undoubted amount of suffering that the animal was experiencing and the prolonged agony and certain death that awaited it should nothing be done. After about a week permission was granted from the Icelandic government to attempt a rescue of the whale.

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Wikipedia