It's Anthony Chadwick welcoming you to another episode of Vet Chat from the webinar vet. I really, really pleased to have, Natalie Arrow on the line today. I've got to just test myself saying that because of course many of you who've listened or watched er Natalie's webinars will know her as Natalie Waddingham Waddington.
Obviously Natalie, lots of really nice things about getting married, but one of the pains for women is having to change the name which er can take a bit of time, can't it? Yeah, absolutely, yeah, bit of a pain. I remember when I got married to my wife, she had to confuse the kids in her junior school by suddenly changing her name sort of mid, you know, between terms, so she was McNamara, which is of course son of the sea.
Before she, went off on half term and then she was Chadwick when she came back, which was terribly confusing. But of course as a son of the sea, she probably would be very interested to listen to this podcast because we're going to be talking all things cetaceans and obviously as a veterinary surgeon who's doing so much work with with cetaceans as part of the British Divers Marine Life Rescue. It'd be great to to know about some of the really cool things you're doing, but perhaps before we get into that, tell us a little bit about the history, what brought you to to working with dolphins and whales and porpoises at this stage in your life.
Well, to be honest, this was, this was definitely not the plan. I think I've always had a background interest in wildlife, and growing up as well. It was always something that I, I kind of wanted to do, but as I went through vet school, I was really put off by how competitive it looked to get into this sort of, zoo and wildlife field, so I.
Decided that I was going to try and embark on becoming a small animal medicine specialist, so that was kind of the aim when I left vet school. And then the first practise that I worked at in Cornwall, was very strangely enough, somewhere that had a small, seal pup hospital being run out of the back of it by British Divers Marine Life Rescue. And on my, well it was only my first few weeks, one of the nurses at the practise asked me if I liked seals, and I was like, sure, yeah, why not sort of thing.
And she said, well, out the back in the outbuildings, you know, there is this small facility being run by this charity and they're always looking for veterinary help. So if you wanna go and get involved as a volunteer, then you could. So I was massively excited by this and went straight out there at the, the next lunch break to ask, you know, can I get involved, and they were really, really keen to have me there.
The rest is history really. I've just got more and more involved with the charity over time, mostly working with, seal pups, but also attending a fair share of, cetacean strandings as well and doing a lot of support, remotely for cetacean strandings happening, all over the UK, and doing a lot of teaching, on the subject as well. So yeah, it kind of all grew just from that first.
Moment of that practise and having that opportunity to go and get involved and and know I am not a small animal medicine specialist. And of course Devonian born and bred but now moved over to the dark side and lived in Cornwall, how does, how does that feel? It can be difficult sometimes.
There are some, some barriers that have to be worked through, but luckily I still do my cream tea the right way around for my Devonian heritage. So, I'm still loved when I go back home. And I must admit I, I went to Cornwall when I was still in 6th form.
We did walked around the coast and the people there are very, very friendly and was down there again recently a year or two ago, . Nicky, Paul has a cottage down there which we bid on for a a vet life auction. And then because of the COVID crisis, everybody was wanting to keep the holidays.
At home, so everybody sort of descended on Devon and Cornwall I think didn't they, a couple of years ago, so it probably got quite quite busy but we were by Los Withy went to the Eden Project and so on, but. Unluckily didn't see any didn't see any porpoises or any dolphins. Mm mm.
Yeah, that's that's the way of it unfortunately it's it's kind of what makes it extra magical to me is that when you're going out, you're never guaranteed to see anything at all. So if you do see something then it's very special. Well, I think that's the beauty of .
You know, being a naturalist, obviously, I think we both share that sort of love of animals, wild and tame, and of course we're recording this today on World Animal Day, which is partly celebrated because it's also the feast of Saint Francis of Assisi, who is the patron saint of animals and the environment, so it's . It it is, it's, it's good that we're doing this today and only yesterday I was travelling back from WWSAVA, from Lisbon to Faro, and I was on the train and I saw about 10 flamingos off from the train and about 100 storks. So, yeah, you're right, it is that magical moment of if you go out kind of wanting to tick off things, sometimes you lose the magic of.
Just being in nature, don't you? Absolutely, yeah, no, you've you've gotta be, be in the moment and just enjoy whatever, whatever you see on the day. And sometimes it's the ordinary things when I was travelling over to the ISFM conference on the ferry, it was just seeing the man shear waters flying in front of the boat and the occasional gannets.
It's those things that can bring real joy, can't they? It's a, it must be a very joyful job to do, but then upsetting when, when you see, you know, pups that are unwell or, or indeed some stranded cetaceans, cos I suppose. Once they are stranded, it's usually a sign that there's something more seriously wrong, they tend to strand when they're unwell, don't they?
Yeah, I mean, certainly a, a big proportion of them will strand because they are unhealthy in some way. They might be a very old animal that's just coming to the end of its natural life, or it may be that it has a nasty infection of some sort or an injury, but we do also see cetacean strand in a healthy state as far as we can tell when we go and do the assessments on the beach. And so in those circumstances, then, we'll try and get a vet on site to actually double check that they are healthy.
And if they are, then we will attempt to refloat them, so in a controlled way, we will try and get them swimming again, basically. And when that goes well, it is just amazing, it's just one of the, some of the best experiences I've ever had in refloating cetaceans. Yeah, it's very, very rewarding when it all goes to plan.
What sort of percentage do you feel that you can rescue from a stranding, you know, of those that you go to see, is it 10%, is it 20%, is it higher than that? It's, it's difficult to say, purely because we are dealing with, . Such a, a wide variety of different sort of circumstances and situations.
Recently I went to a mass stranding of, of common dolphins in a river in Cornwall. So we had 8 individuals. And strangely enough, when they mass strand, it's actually more likely that they've stranded because of something to do with, the sort of the local terrain, and so they've basically made like a navigational area, a navigational error, sorry.
So they've, come into the river at high tide looking for fish, and then been caught out as the tide's receded. And if we can get people and resources to those sorts of, situations, we can sometimes refloat all of those animals and the success rate can be high. So on that day we did manage to save 7 out of the 8 animals, which is amazing.
But when we see single animals stranded on their own, I'm a lot more suspicious that they are unwell. And then when we're going to those lone animals, I would say sort of maybe 70 to 80% of the time, we're probably looking at a euthanasia. But it really varies for so many different reasons.
Mhm. And when you're working with the dolphins, you know, particularly that mass stranding, do they kind of understand you're trying to help them, or can you still be given a a nasty bite or anything? They, I always struggle to explain what it's like working with stranded sertations because it's very unusual.
Part of my, dissertation from my masters was looking at, these interactions that happen between people and dolphins at strandings, and speaking to a lot of my colleagues who have been in these situations, and they all kind of describe this kind of of the worldly experience of dealing with this animal that. You know, is an animal and is very, very different to us clearly, but at the same time, we know that they have this really advanced capacity for, you know, high emotional intelligence, extremely social, you know, very, very close social bonds, things like that. And it's very odd just to deal with this creature that's so not like us, but also so like us at the same time, and you can make eye contact with them.
And sometimes you just get this impression that there really is somebody home looking back at you, and kind of, you know, reacting to what you were doing, . And I've definitely had circumstances where I've been, or we as a team have been helping a dolphin and getting them more comfortable and things on the site where they're stranded. And they will respond positively to our first aid, so their behaviour will become a lot more relaxed.
Their respiratory rate will come down, which suggests again that they're becoming more relaxed. And that's quite unusual. Most wildlife, as you know, once humans are interacting with it, they are extremely stressed, very unhappy, you know, could die from the interaction.
But it doesn't seem to always be that way with cetaceans, so. Yeah, they are, they are quite, quite unusual and very, very fascinating to work with. And I think you see a real sense of the joy, which you can see in many animals, but that, I remember going to see fungi in Dingle.
He was a famous dolphin there that used to inhabit the bay in Dingle, and he would jump at the side of the boat. Now, you know, I'm sure there are some other reasons, but there almost seemed to be a joy in being close to people as well, and you don't want to anthropomorphize animals, but at the same time, I, I really understand what you're saying there is a. There's a close connection, they are such an intelligent group, you know, whales, dolphins and porpoises.
Yep. Yeah, absolutely. I think the more people I've spoken to who have had these sorts of interactions with cetaceans, both, you know, out cetacean watching with with healthy, healthy, happy animals and those that are stranded, and people do use a lot of er, you know, quite complicated emotional terms to describe how they think the dolphin was feeling, and it's amazing that.
They've managed to get that just from a short amount of time spent, you know, seeing or or with the animal. So yeah, it's something that I find really, really interesting is that that sort of connection that we, we have with cetaceans. And of course you hear about people being protected by dolphins from sharks and the like, don't you as well in certain instances.
So yeah, it's a, it's a fascinating and it must be such a privileged place to be in to be working so closely with, with all of these creatures. Yeah, it's a, it's a huge, huge honour. It's something that I never ever expected to do.
So yeah, I feel massively privileged to be able to to assist them. So, so Natalie, where did you graduate from veterinary wise? So I graduated from the Royal Veterinary College in 2016.
Right, and then you've done your masters, where did you do your master's? That was with the University of Edinburgh, but online, thankfully. Oh right, what was the master's topic?
What were you studying? Conservation medicine? Oh brilliant, good.
And you've obviously done quite a few webinars for us as well, as I said before, under the name Waddington for those wanting to have a look at them. Seal puppet health assessments, treatment of seals, and then, some basic stuff on stranded cetaceans and the role of the veterinary team. Moving maybe over to seals, seals, I think sometimes can be a little less friendly towards you when you're trying to free them from.
Entrapments and things, what are the sort of things you, you, you are seeing, I mean. The vet chat and webinar vest has a strong focus towards sustainability and towards conservation. It's something that we're very passionate about as a, as a team.
And presumably with seal pups and probably even with cetaceans, you're seeing evidence of sort of plastic pollution causing problems in these animals as well. What, what are the sort of things that you've seen and what are the common things you see in that sort of area? Mhm.
So a absolutely massive global issue and also a really important issue in the UK and really, really important in Cornwall as well is is bycatch and entanglement of marine mammals. So bycatch being when an animal becomes entangled in a, in a live fishing net, and then entanglement being, when they are entangled in, lost or discarded, fishing gear. Very sadly, many of the individuals that are by caught in those live nets will actually drown in the net.
But the animals that become entangled in that lost, fishing gear, that can cause them a whole host of really, really serious, issues, wounds, pain and distress, generally it affects how they function, so they can't hunt as well, they become malnourished, they become sick. So it's a, a massive problem. And it is responsible for killing hundreds of thousands of marine mammals around the world each year.
And sadly it is something that I have a lot of hands-on experience with from my work here in Cornwall and and speaking to people all around the UK and and other parts of the world as well. So, particularly, where I am in Cornwall, as an example, we have a, a big issue with fishing, gear. So a lot of the work that we do, in terms of kind of our, collaboration with other organisations, is around how to, how to approach that topic with, you know, with the fishing community in a positive way and sort of working towards finding ways to prevent these horrible things from, from happening.
So yes, for us, bycatching entanglement I would say is, is our main, main issue. What are the sorts of solutions when you're speaking to the fishing industry, what do you see as the sort of top three things that fishing industry could do that would really massively reduce this problem? Yeah, so there are some, you know, we can look at some solutions potentially like using acoustic deterrents, so these are kind of devices that are attached onto.
Fishing nets that emit a sort of high frequency sound, that is meant to deter marine mammals from approaching the net. And this works to a degree, the animals and obviously with these animals being particularly intelligent as well, they will get sort of used to this sound over time and then and come to realise that it's not gonna cause them any harm. So things like that are, you know, of some use, but maybe not of long-term use.
For me, I think it's really, really important that we try and, provide, some educational materials for, the fishing community just to try and help them in terms of understanding the, the ecosystem that they're working with. The nets, the plastic nets are, you know, so resilient, they will last for centuries in the ocean. So are there some sort of more eco-friendly alternative fishing nets that will eventually degrade?
I think there is research being done in this area, but I'm not aware of anything that's come up at the moment yet. I mean, the, the issue is just, is just the fact that, you know, we are using the absolutely enormous nets that are just really indiscriminate and we catch, you know, pretty much everything rather than just, you know, the, the species that we, we want. Trawler nets disturbing the, the sea bed as well.
That's again a massive problem. Yeah, all this sort of stuff, it's, it's, it's huge, and the, the impact that we have on the, the marine ecosystems are just massive. And we really need to try and better understand that ecosystem and what we're doing to it and the fact that, you know, it's gonna cause us problems in the long term as well as everything else.
The one that I was going to ask about is Lime course tuna because that's a big thing, isn't it, with the supermarkets and what's the most. Eco-friendly or dolphin friendly tuna, is that something that's a possibility, and I suppose, because I think the dolphin really love tuna, don't they? I don't know if there's much tuna off the coast of Cornwall and Devon.
I think that's probably more a a problem in another part of the world, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, . I can't say I know huge amounts about tuna.
I know that at the moment there's actually we have fishermen who would like seals to be culled because they see them as eating, eating all the fish basically. And I know there have been calls recently to start culling tuna, funnily enough, because they are also eating other species of fish that we want to catch. So, yeah, it kind of moves down the food chain.
It's not just our ocean though, is it? This is the thing we, we kind of should be sharing it with, with others, so they've got a right to catch a few . Yeah, of course.
And it's about, yeah, doing everything sustainably and just trying to get people, I guess, to understand, you know, the impact that they're having and that if they change their practises it. Will benefit them in the long run as well as everything else in the ecosystem too. So looking at these, you know, marine pre sorry, marine protected areas, really, really important, gives the ecosystem a chance to, you know, replenish itself, and then obviously we can benefit from that and so can everything else.
Yeah, it was really interesting at COP 15, which was in Montreal just before Christmas. The whole idea of 30 by 30, which is also a land commitment but also a sea commitment that I, 2030, 30% of our seas are protected from fishing because I think there's been a lot of studies done that show that if you, if you keep a certain percentage of the sea free from fishing, that acts as nurseries and allows it to be more sustainably fished, and I think it was post COP 15 that the high seas. Treaty was passed which was again trying to pass into law this commitment by many countries, you know, to the 30 by 30 commitment, which is obviously very heartening to see if it's policed and you know, abided by.
Mhm. Yeah, I, I sincerely hope that they managed to reach or or even succeed those targets, . I'm a little bit hesitant to believe that they they will achieve it, but I really, really hope they do.
And like you say, there's there's just this real issue around policing and and regulation, which is gonna be a really massive barrier to overcome. But you know, if it's successful, that this will be hugely beneficial to, to, to everybody, and, and not just ourselves, so yeah, I'll absolutely keep my my fingers crossed and there's anything that. I can do my work to support that then then I will do.
Well, I think you're doing brilliant work and, you know, I tell the story about the boy you saw the thousands of starfish stranded when the sea went out and he was throwing starfish back one at a time and a man came up to him and said, you know, what are you doing? And he said, well, I'm throwing these starfish back in the sea, and he said well there's so many, you know, what difference are you gonna make? And as he picked up another one, threw it into the sea, he said it made a difference to that one, so.
I think with the work that you're doing, you know, those 7 dolphins that were stranded, 8 dolphins, 7 of whom survived, that is a massive contribution and. You know, it adds up if everybody's doing work of this sort. I think it makes a huge, a huge difference, so, you know, thank you so much for obviously doing that.
Just maybe talking a little bit about the British Divers Marine Life Rescue, this is obviously a charity that you're now working with and in fact, I think you're now pretty much full time with them, or, or you're not doing any small animal medicine work anymore, are you? That's that's correct, yeah. And is that a charity?
Yeah, so, British Divers Marine Life Rescue is a, is a national charity, so we respond to marine life, but mostly marine mammals, in distress all around the UK coastline, and we do that via a, a really big network of, specially trained volunteers, our marine mammal medics, and yeah, the charity's been going since 1988 and has helped many, many, many thousands of animals over the years. Fantastic and presumably most of the, the sort of strandings and when you're trying to rescue the the mammals, you're not having to actually dive because they are, you know, on the shore, but hopefully do you get a bit of fun and go out diving as well and see them in their natural environment. Well, unfortunately, the divers part of our name is more of a historical reference now, so the charity was actually started by a group of divers who were trying to help out with a Fauine distemper virus outbreak back in 1988 that was killing many thousands of seals.
So we don't really do any diving these days, but I am a, a recreational. Diver and though I get out pretty rarely these days due to work commitments. You were in the sea quite a lot, but only up to your, up to your belly.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I try and, yeah, but most, mostly just in the shallows thankfully. Yeah, yeah, it's good fun.
What is the probably the most common of the animals that you're seeing around the, the United Kingdom coast that you're a part of the seals obviously, but amongst the cetaceans as well. Yeah, so the two most common species that we deal with in terms of strandings are harbour porpoises and common dolphins by far. Yeah, and then presumably with the seals, there's grey seals and.
Yeah, grey seals the majority. So yeah, in the UK, we have grey seals and we have common or harbour seals. But funnily enough, grey seals are actually quite rare globally, but we have quite a lot of them in the UK.
They are more abundant than the common seal, which is kind of confusing, but the common seal is more abundant globally, . Yeah. Yeah, if that makes sense.
No, I, yeah, I, I, I thought I was gonna say the common seal was the second one, and then I just was not confident enough in myology to, to make a fool of myself. If in doubt, the a good shout. Natalie, it's fascinating work that you're doing.
Thank you so much for everything that you are doing for our these very special creatures, I think seals and cetaceans, I think they hold a special place in most people's hearts. And I do hope that the work that's being done on a more global level makes your work easier, rather than more difficult because I think with, The strandings that there is a sort of belief that some of the poisonings and things that we're seeing in when when we're PMing the cetaceans, there's a lot of plastics that we're finding there and also various chemicals that are coming into the sea as well and, and obviously causing illness in in these animals as well. Mhm.
Yeah, unfortunately, we're still seeing the really long lasting effects of things like the PCBs that were being used, you know, many years ago and have been banned, but, we're still, you know, routinely, you know, some studies will take blubber samples and find outrageous levels of these, these toxins still, in these animals which then gets passed down to the next generation, when the mums are feeding their their calves or their pups. So, yeah, really devastating. Yeah, but Natalie, again, thank you for the work that you're doing for being that beacon of hope.
Hope is something that I talk a lot about. We, we have to believe that we do this sort of work that there is a good outcome at the end and that was a lovely story about the the 8 the 8 dolphins that were stranded and that must have made you go to bed that night feeling pretty pleased with all the work that you've been able to do. I think we're all absolutely exhausted.
You slept well. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah.
So you know, it was a very good outcome. Yeah. Fantastic.
Natalie, thanks again, thanks for agreeing to talk to me. Also for the fantastic webinars that you've done for Webinar vet and for the fabulous work that you're doing protecting these species. Oh, thank you so much.
Thanks Natalie, thanks everyone for listening. This was Anthony Chadwick, the webinar vet, and another episode of vet chat. Take care.
