Stop the import and sale of flying rings that cause pain, suffering and death to seals
By Sue Sayer, MBE Founder and Director of the Seal Research Trust
We are so grateful to our inspirational Cornwall Council and it’s elected members for supporting our ‘Save Our Seals from Flying Rings Campaign’.
They have always been pioneers for the environment because our seascapes are Cornwall’s greatest asset, environmentally, for all our health and wellbeing and for our economy based on tourism.
Cornwall’s wonderful councillors have led the way with The Maritime Strategy, Environmental Growth Strategy, and are one of the first authorities to adopt a statutory Nature Recovery Strategy with a voluntary Marine Nature Recovery Framework to follow.
Cornwall Council has shown great leadership once again in the South West with their decision today, that will help protect our native, heritage, and speciality marine species – seals.
This UK-wide campaign was launched at the end of May by the UK Seal Alliance in response to the increasing incidents of seals being entangled in flying rings.
We are urging the public to sign the Change.org petition (the petition already has over 42,000 signatures) to stop buying flying rings and retailers to stop selling them. Instead, we are asking that people switch to wildlife-safe solid disc toys, ideally non-plastic. So we are not spoiling people’s fun or taking away trade from retailers, quite the opposite, as a safer alternative has always been available and retailers report higher sales of these toys too.
Thanks to Councillor Rosie Moore’s motion, Cornwall Council has joined the growing number of Unitary Authorities across the UK in banning these lethal toys and we now ask the public and visitors to Cornwall to respect today’s decision and act accordingly”.
As you may have seen in the news/media during the summer of 2023, a team led by the British Divers Marine Life Rescue with the Cornish Seal Sanctuary (plus many other helpers) managed to successfully capture an adult female seal called Wings (photo below), who was found with a ring-style frisbee around her neck.
This story has been covered by the international media agencies. Wings, a much-loved wild seal who has frequented St Ives, has been Photo Identified by the Seal Research Trust since 2003. She was spotted being slowly strangled by the plastic ring by members of the public.
The ring style frisbee is ultimately fatal as the seal can’t escape from it, and this one was particularly tight despite only being around her neck for a maximum of 2 weeks!
This story has been covered by the international media agencies. Wings, a much-loved wild seal who has frequented St Ives, has been Photo Identified by the Seal Research Trust since 2003. She was spotted being slowly strangled by the plastic ring by members of the public.
Thankfully, the teams were able to remove the ring and ensure Wings could return happily to the wild. Her story went viral on social media.
Wings is one of the lucky ones, however, not all seals have a happy ending. We have evidence of what can happen if a seal dies as a result of entanglement in a flying ring but the photographs are so gruesome, we have not included them.
To sign the petition – please go to: https://www.change.org/SaveOurSealsFromFlyingRings
