Rescuers free seal stuck in boulders at Gwynver beach

A seal has been rescued after becoming wedged between boulders and entangled in a discarded fishing net.

Land's End Coastguard Rescue Team helped charity volunteers free the seal, which had a "horrendous" wound from the fishing wire, on Wednesday.

The seal was minutes away from drowning in the incoming high tide, British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) said.

Conservationists have spent more than two years trying to capture the entangled seal in order to help her.

Dan Jarvis, from the BDMLR charity, described it as an "epic, stand-out" rescue.

He said a member of the public reported seeing the trapped seal at the remote spot in west Cornwall at about 15:20 BST on Wednesday.

A number of BDMLR volunteers joined about seven coastguard team members in a bid to free the seal with rope hoists before the incoming tide drowned her.

Mr Jarvis said: "The seal was completely wedged in the boulders - they weren't really possible to move and it was a big Spring tide. Waves were splashing over the seal... This was a really lucky seal."

Once she was released the "exhausted" seal was then carried in a rescue bag to the beach where she was driven to the BDMLR Cornwall Seal Hospital.

She will be stabilised there during her first critical hours and days before moving to Cornish Seal Sanctuary.

Mr Jarvis said she had a "horrendous" 4cm-deep neck wound from the discarded "ghost net".

She has been identified as a five-year-old female which was first spotted by Cornwall Seal Group Research Trust with fishing wire stuck around her neck in December 2018, and her growth appears to have been significantly stunted in that time, Mr Jarvis said.

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