![[Cornish Seal Sanctuary]](images/entrance202001g.jpg)
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| Welcome to the Cornish Seal Sanctuary, set
in the picturesque Helford Estuary, by the beautiful village of
Gweek in Cornwall.
The Cornish Seal Sanctuary is a Rescue, Rehabilitation, and Release centre for seals, and most seasons they rescue over 60 pups.
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The Sanctuary started in the winter of 1958 when a baby seal, only a few hours old, was washed up on the beach at St Agnes. Ken Jones lived with his wife Mary just one hundred yards from the beach, he picked up the pup and took it back to his small garden.
For many years he ran a rescue centre for seals and oiled birds, with just one pool, at St Agnes. The news of his work with seals spread, and he received more and more calls about injured seals.
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Ken realised he needed more room, as the single pool at St Agnes was just not big enough. Ken had to find a larger site to build a permanent rescue centre and was offered land by the beautiful river Helford in Gweek.
The cost nearly stopped Ken finishing the project, and he had to work hard to complete the Sanctuary ready accommodate both resident and rescued seals.
The Sanctuary moved to Gweek in 1975, and Ken slowly built up the size, and number of pools, so he could care for the increasing number of seals that were being rescued around the Cornish coast.
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Today the Sanctuary has nursery pools, rehabilitation, convalescent and resident pools, and a specially designed hospital. The hospital over the years has been extended to include isolation pools, as well as treatment and preparation areas.
The Sanctuary has rescued many seals over the years, and most are well enough to be released back into the wild after treatment, but some seals, for various reasons, would not survive back in the wild, so they have them as guests.
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Occasionally the Sanctuary´s facilities and expertise are called upon to aid in the rescue of other marine creatures such as Dolphins and Turtles. Click here to read a newspaper extract from 1988.
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The Cornish Seal Sanctuary celebrated their Diamond Anniversary (1958-2018) with a host of VIPs on the evening of 1st September 2018 including Ken Jones´s daughter Linda and her husband Paul.
Paul and Linda reminisced about the good and bad times in the early years of the Sanctuary, the problems Ken had creating the Sanctuary at Gweek and how it went on to become the largest Seal Sanctuary in the country.
Mike Thomas talked about his time as Owner/Manager including the story of Pepper and Rocky.
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