It was my first trip to Ireland. After a rowdy night exploring Dublin, I hired a car and headed south towards coastal County Wexford.
After an hour’s scenic drive, I reached Seal Rescue Ireland in the coastal hamlet of Courtown. I was introduced to Laura- an enthusiastic intern who had already spent months volunteering with orphaned seals at the centre. I had signed up for the Rescure-for-a-Day program, and she sat me down to give me some background knowledge before we set to work, cleaning enclosures and preparing “fish soup” for the juvenile seals who were too young for whole fish.
After a morning of hard work and smelling thoroughly of fish, we sat down to talk about her experiences at the centre and hopes for the future
Tell me a little about your background. What drew you to this internship at Seal Rescue Ireland?
I’m currently at university studying Biology [in the UK]. I’m taking a year off from university until I finish my degree, just because I know [my field] is such a hard area to get into, the qualifications aren’t always enough- you also need some decent experience.
So I chose to take the year off and gain experience so when I graduate it puts me a bit ahead of the curve.
Then hopefully I’ll be able to find a paid job in my field.
And with a biology degree, are you looking to go more into the research or the keeper side of that field?
It keeps changing! But at the moment I am more into the research side of things and also conservation. My dream job would be a field research assistant, so I could go and work wherever I want, I can change the species quite often and have a bit of freedom. I’m also really interested in the marine stuff. I grew up in a coastal fishing town so I’ve always been used to it.
What kind of tasks would you perform during a typical day as a Seal Rescue Intern?
It varies depending on which shift you’re on. Everything is not split equally. For example most of us here are education and seal interns- so you’ll work half your time on the seals and half your time on tours.
If you’re on tours, you start at nine in the morning and finish [around] six, and its basically just helping to educate the public- you make sure the welcome centre is clean and then take visitors on tours, talk them through what we do here, answer any questions, and try to educate the community.
For the seals shift, it depends a little. At the moment we have really young pups, so we have to feed them every four hours. So some people are on the AM shift, they start at 7:30am to begin the morning feeds. Then the rest will come in at 9am when most of the feeding is done. They’ll just get on with the normal day to day tasks- cleaning all the kennels first of all, starting to drain pools, getting the seals ready for the pools. When the seals get a little bit older, you’ll be laying out the fish for them to eat whole.
And then we have the morning meeting around 10am when everyone will get together and talk about the seals. It lets us know whats going to be [happening] for the rest of the day as well as going over the special needs of particular seals so that everyone’s on the same page. The day ends around 6pm for most of us. But whoever is on the late shift has to come back at 7:30pm and then midnight to do all the evening feeds, and clean up after themselves as well.
We’ve been pretty lucky this year, as we haven’t had any premature baby seals yet- if we did we would need to come back at 4am to feed them an extra time. So its not too bad, but it can be quite a lot [of work].
And how many volunteers or interns do you generally have?
At the moment we’re at full capacity. So there is about 15 interns here full-time, and then on top of that there is the managers as well. So maybe 20 people who work here on a day-to-day basis. And then we get local volunteers who come in and help.
When there are really young seals here, there is so much to do, so you need as many hands on deck as possible.
Do you have accommodation provided while you volunteer here?
There is some accommodation, but it is first-come first-served just because it is limited. I live in a shared house with other volunteers, and there is a smaller house as well with just four people in it. One of our interns here has his own accomodation in the village. He’s renting a place in Gorey, its a nice place. You can find shared accomodation in the town as well. But you learn to get along with people very very quickly- like “you have to be my friend because we see each other all the time!”
And how many days a week do you work?
We work 5 days a week. Usually its two days working with the seals directly and two days doing tours and gift shop. The other day you’ll be on float and do a bit of both. We do also have quite a lot of events going on, so now and then you’ll go off-site, sometimes its just for a day or sometimes for a weekend. So it does vary depending on what’s going on that week.
That’s cool, what kind of events do you participate in?
We had a stall at “sea-fest” recently, its like a surfing festival. We went to “bloom” the flower show because there’s a lot of people interested in conservation there, so we got lots of people interested. And quite recently we went to the “Taste of Wicklow”- they had a lot of arts and crafts going on, so we could talk about our eco-bricks [a home-made building brick made of recycled bottles and plastic]. We do go to quite a lot of places.
Now and then, we go on marine conservation roadshows, where we give talks at schools or other organisations
That’s a really cool idea, so you’re really raising awareness about seals and conservation in the community
It is, we cover a lot of ground [laughs].
Yeah, and I bet you get to see a lot of Ireland that way too. Is there a lot of training or preparation you need to do before you come to volunteer here?
The shelter does prefer interns who are studying or experienced in a relevant field, so its better if you can show an awareness or interest in that [area]. They are aware that a lot of people are coming here to get more experience while they study. But you don’t need a lot of experience before you come, as long as you’re prepared to work and have a good attitude.
But yeah, definitely look into seals and get a little background. Its always helpful to know a little before you get here. When you arrive you go through a whole week of training, and its a lot of information at once. And its great learning so much but it helps to be ahead of the curve.
Do you feel like you’ve made an impact on the lives of the animals while working here? Is it rewarding work?
I hope I have [laughs]! It definitely is [rewarding]. I mean its definitely difficult because the seals are wild animals and they arrive in a distressed state. Its hard. But when its a seal that you’ve rescued yourself, you work hard and you coordinate everything. And finally one day it gets to be released, then you can feel like you’ve done your job properly and seen it through to the end.
It must be amazing seeing how fast they grow once you start feeding them the right things too.
Yeah, its crazy! And by the time you release them they are like, six to eight months old.
You can see their personalities developing as well which is quite funny.
You don’t really expect when you go to work with wild animals that you’ll be able to tell the difference between their personalities, so its definitely rewarding that way.
What advice would you give to someone who was thinking of coming to volunteer here?
Definitely do it! Be prepared to do things you may not normally. Its a lot of physical work, really depending on what season it is. If you’re working with the grey [seals] they get real heavy! And you just have to lift them!
And I can already tell how much you know about seals from the tour- you’ve taught me so much already! You know so many seal facts! [laughs]
And its so good because a lot of that I didn’t know, and they do train you really well. I was given whole binders of information, and you can just pick the parts to learn that really resonate with you. And they are always improving on it as well.
We have an education manager here, and education is a big part of the internship. We have meetings every now and then and we run projects to spread awareness and improve the centre. Like, every now and then we have eco-brick work-shops and educate people through that. Or we’ll think about how to educate children. So we have toddler time here where we tell stories, it gets them interested and aware of the environment from a young age.
So its definitely good to go in with some ideas of what you want to get out of it.
Thankyou so much for speaking with me, and for sharing your knowledge and passion about Seal Rescue!
Further Information
If you’d like to learn more about becoming an intern at Seal Rescue Ireland, you can read all about my visit to the shelter, or contact them on the Seal Resuce Ireland Website or facebook page.
Head back over to the Volunteering page to find out about other charity and shelter projects where you can volunteer.
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