| GANDALF - RESCUED 26/07/02 | |
| Gandalf, who is about 6 days old, had been spotted lying on a beach at Strachur, Cowal by himself, for four days and with no other signs of seal activity near by. It was decided that he must have been abandoned and therefore in need of rescue.
Apart from being malnourished and fairly underweight for his age (8.3kg) Gandalf is a very bright and alert wee seal. He has been given a course of general antibiotics to combat any infections he may have picked up prior to rescue and blood samples taken to be analysed later. He has been fed on a special milk formula called Multimilk which is a fairly good alternative to mothers milk. This will aid his increase in weight. At two weeks old we will start to wean him onto fish which is the natural time he would do this for himself in the wild. He has responded very well to treatment and has progressed in leaps and bounds. He has been a star pupil so far. | |
| UPDATE 6th September 2002 | |
| Since arriving here at the sanctuary Gandalf has been a star pupil, in fact you may say he’s magic. The weaning process was far faster with Gandalf than with most pups meaning that he is putting on weight very rapidly. On only his second day of fish feeds Gandalf was eating whole herring and was hand feeding instead of being force fed. His weight is now up to 11 kilos and he is growing every day. | 
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| With a lovely nature and quick wits Gandalf has been a favourite among many visitors. | |
| UPDATE 12th November 2002 | |
| Gandalf moved to the weaning pool soon after Arwen moved outside. He was surprisingly slow at learning to eat herring from the water. After picking up hand feeding so well we thought he would whiz through the next stages. He was last to be moved outside after a couple of weeks on his own in the weaning pool, and had put on loads of weight by the time he moved to the main pools. He is keeping up well with all the others and is quite a character in the pools. He can be picked out from the mob by his staring eyes, his whites can usually be seen. | |
| Read about his release | |