South West London seal remembered in tribute book

The adventures of South West London’s favorite seal will likely be remembered in a book as a consequence of come out in June.

A pair from Sevenoaks have spent weeks charting the “fascinating” lifetime of the younger seal, who died just lately in a canine assault on the banks of the River Thames.

Alison Kelly, 39 and accomplice Matt Millard, 40, have been gripped by the unhappy story of the enduring seal’s demise in March and determined to co-author a tribute.

The animal-loving couple has two cats, Thor and Pixie, and have beforehand created a collection of youngsters’s books that includes a duck detective.

The pair spent over two months researching the lifetime of seal ‘Freddie Mercury’, who hailed from the Netherlands earlier than settling in London’s waters.

Freddie after he had been rescued in the Netherlands, Credit: Zeehondencentrum

“We had been following Freddie’s antiques on the TV and the information, however we have been so saddened by the canine assault. We couldn’t actually perceive why it had occurred and why seals didn’t have extra safety,” mentioned Alison.

“I began to marvel the place he had come from and did a little bit of analysis and discovered he had been fairly far, from the Netherlands, to France, to the UK. He went the place all of the fish have been.”

Freddie: Life of a Seal consists of anecdotes and by no means seen earlier than photographs, in addition to vibrant illustrations from Sami Astow.

The 30-page eBook features a map of the seal’s journey, created utilizing data from its digital tag.  

Richmond and Twickenham Times: Map of Freddie's journey from the Netherlands to the UKMap of Freddie’s journey from the Netherlands to the UK

Various animal organisations have contributed tales, together with an animal safety league in Calais, France, who discovered Freddie stranded on a well-known WW1 seaside close to Dunkirk.

All income from the eBook will likely be break up between the 4 organisations that cared for Freddie, together with the British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) and South Essex Wildlife Hospital.

Alison added that any leftover proceeds will go in the direction of her “dream” of printing the book in hardback.

She mentioned that the problem is especially related with the event of the Thames Tideway, a 4.2 billion ‘tremendous sewer’ that stretches 25km in size.

“The motive we’re getting so many extra seals and porpoises is due to the Thames Tideway, which is making London’s water cleaner,” Alison mentioned.

It’s actually vital to shine a light-weight on it now, as if there’s going to be extra wildlife in the Thames then extra seals like Freddie received’t be protected.

Richmond and Twickenham Times: Freddie rescued in a cage, before he had to be put down due to injuries Freddie rescued in a cage, earlier than he needed to be put down as a consequence of accidents

The goal is to get signage up telling individuals what to do in the event that they encounter a seal, and to maintain their canine on leads in specific areas.

“Hopefully the federal government will go a movement, defending seals just like the deer in Richmond Park.”

The book is launched on Tuesday, June 1 and will likely be that can be purchased on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), Google Play Books, Lulu and Smashwords.

To discover out extra from the authors, you possibly can comply with their Instagram web page: @Freddielifeofaseal 

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