Hi again all,
Sorry it has been a short while since my last post; writing on the internet is not the only thing I have to do with my time! Sometimes I have to do trivial things such as eat, sleep, and work!
Anyway, having had a little break away from this post I have read it through and decided that the best thing for me to do is to summarise the post so far, hopefully in a useful way that will not offend anyone. That way we can all move on from here without repeating ourselves, causing offense, or getting confused.
Firstly, some baseline facts about Donna Nook. The site is a rapidly growing tourist attraction and seal colony. Just to quote some figures the site was visited by an estimated 5,900 visitors this Sunday (according to Andy, one of the wardens I chatted to).
In terms of seals, the site is split into two colonies. The first of these is the dunes colony. The site's two car parks are at either end of this colony and are linked by a pathway. The colony is protected by a double fence erected in 2007 along this pathway. Wardens armed with binoculars patrol this pathway, partially to answer questions, partially to look for struggling seals, and partially to prevent members of the public acting up. The far side of this colony is not protected by a fence (as the seals could not get through!) but has signs indicating that the area is a seal sanctuary. As far as I am aware there are no problems with trespassing on this site.
The dunes colony seals are also perfectly used to humans viewing them from behind the fence. This is because this part of the site is open 24/7 to the public, and this year it is expected that around 250,000 visitors will tread its sands this year. With this in mind the wardens are doing a brilliant job, especially as they are an entirely volunteer workforce and are severely under staffed (or should that be volunteered? )
The debate on this thread is about the second colony; the beach colony. This colony is primarily used by adolescent seals and non-breeding adults (grey seals usually breed every other year) as a haul up area. However, a few seals do pup here annually (roughly 1/10th of the 1000 or so pups born so far this year were born in the beach colony).
Unlike the dunes colony, humans can only visit the colony when the red flag of the RAF is not flying. The seals have adapted to their different surroundings in different ways to those at the dunes colony. They are perfectly used to planes flying and even releasing rockets overhead which land 5 or so miles down the beach. However, these seals are not used to humans and view them as a threat.
There is a correct way to approach these seals to cause minimal disturbance, and unless one of you beats me to it, I will be writing a post A.S.A.P. on this because as you have been saying, education trumps finger pointing and I am sure many of the tips (such as singing to the seals!) are not things that would be immediately thought of by most relatively sane visitors Sorry I did not respond to your posts on education earlier grumpybadger, I was cycling home, cooking, eating, and talking to my girlfriend!
I observed the large majority of photographers (whether they be from the TPF or not) completely ignoring this, approaching the seals in whatever way they saw fit. Whether this was because of a lack of education in the matter, because people simply ignored what they knew, or because of peer pressure, I do not know. Regardless, the matter is important. Just to give you an idea, here are a few examples of the behaviours I saw this weekend.
This shows the colony before the arrival of the majority of photographers.
This is an organized group of photographers from a well known international photographic tour guide.
It is slightly unclear how close these photographers are due to telephoto compression, but I can confirm they were within 2m of the seal. Myself and two others had a stern word with these photographers.
A deserted seal pup completely surrounded by photographers; all within 5m.
Two seal pups that were, at the start of the day, completely surrounded by the colony. All the adult seals have left leaving these two pups together with one dead pup (out of shot)
This seal was surrounded on four sides by photographers. The one stood up in this shot was within 2m and using flash.
The wardens of the site (again, I know this from conversations with wardens such as Andy) believe scenes like these have lead to the increased number of abandoned pubs that is being seen this year.
As I am sure you can tell, this is a very emotive issue for me and as such I probably did not approach it in the right way because of my anger. I promise this is not, and has never been, a troll. I had to look up the term on urban dictionary to find out what it meant!!! I joined this community after looking through its forums for years gleaning what information I could when I realised it could be of more use to me if I became an active member (completely independently of the seemingly like-minded BobbyBlue I might add)
I did not wish to offend anyone with my posts and seriously regret any finger pointing I have been involved in. I am especially sorry for calling MrGubby Mr Grubby, I hope you will appreciate that this was a genuine mistake for which I apologise regardless! I hope you also understand the confusion over the post of yours I quoted. The internet is of course a global open community and it is easy to misunderstand the context in which a thread occurred, seemingly in isolation, without knowledge of a beer/curry fuelled conversation!
In return I hope you will agree to stop hassling me for being a new member. I joined this forum with genuine intentions and it is disheartening for new members like myself when I am alienated for making a valid point, all be it in a poorly judged way, simply for being a newbie.
While we are on the subject of my actions, it has been pointed out to me that I did indeed venture onto the beach for a second day this weekend after seeing all the problems on the first day. This was wrong of me and I admit this; I hope you will permit me a brief explanation of why I did this.
Firstly, there were some selfish motives. I had booked a hotel room for Saturday night and as someone on a tight budget did not want to waste that money. This is a crappy reason but one of the unfortunate realities of photography. Secondly, I love Donna Nook. I did not want to believe that what had happened the day before had actually happened. I wanted to give the site a second chance.
In my defence I left the beach colony sometime between 10 and 11 (time is relative, not absolute on the beach) after the arrival of a particularly large group of photographers in the part of the colony I was photographing. I spent the afternoon talking to the wardens about the issues I have raised here and taking a walk along the dunes away from the dune colony and through some of the nearby countryside. On a side note I would really recommend this to everyone reading this. On the salt flats I saw huge flocks of golden plover and Brent geese, and in the drainage ditches around the farmland I saw a egrets, hundreds of teal, and a kingfisher.
Anyway, back to the issue in hand; what to do about the problem.
It has been suggested that a ticketing system would solve the problems. I was initially enthusiastic about this idea, but have regrettably realised that the idea has multiple problems. Firstly, the site is governed by bylaws put in place by the RAF and as such, only they have the right to refuse access to the beach. I cannot imagine troopers being stationed at every entrance to the beach manning ticket booths!!! Secondly, the sheer number of entrances is a problem as they would be impossible to man.
As short term measures I favour two things. Firstly, a post on how to act in Donna Nook as mentioned above. Secondly, wardens on the beach. Andy (the aforementioned warden) has said he will consult Rob (the head warden) about getting at least one warden on the beach at all times.
In terms of the long term, more education does seem to be the way to do things. As I mentioned in a previous post, I will be emailing the Lincs wildlife trust with the photos I have posted here and will suggest the erection of guidelines for photographers at the entrance to the beach. I think this would be easier for them than having to post fliers on every car, photographer or not and beach visitor or casual dune walker or not. This would be a constant expense and also require a large amount of extremely valuable man hours.
I will not be mailing the RAF asking for support in having the site shut down as I previously mentioned I might do. This is in part due to the fact I have heard members talk of visiting the site for the first time in the next few weeks and do not want to be a part of depriving people amazing experiences like those I have had over the last three years. If, however, the situation has not improved within the next few years I think I will have to.
Kind regards,
Peter
p.s. Sorry, I did hope to attribute ideas to everyone in this post, but it turned out being pretty large so I ran out of time.
