British Divers Marine Life Rescue

British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) is a British charity established in 1988 and is a frontline marine mammal response organisation. It uses a network of trained volunteers around the country to respond to marine mammals potentially in need of assistance via a public 24hr hotline and callout system. The organisation's main areas of operation are in the United Kingdom and its territorial waters; however, the charity has received requests from Canada, the Falkland Islands, Kenya, Ireland, Italy, Kazakhstan, Malta and Abu Dhabi.

BDMLR has developed a Marine Mammal Medic training program and has trained over 20,000 medics worldwide. To complement the Marine Mammal Medic training program, BDMLR has also produced a Marine Mammal Medic Handbook for stranded cetaceans. The organisation specialises primarily in pinniped (seals) and cetacean (porpoises, dolphins and whales) rescue, however they will also respond to stranded sea turtles, sharks, oiled sea birds and large whales entangled at sea.

In 2008 BDMLR received training from the Provincetown Centre for Coastal Studies (PCCS) in Maine in the United States of America, on how to rescue entangled large free swimming whales, and in 2013 adapted these techniques to form the BDMLR Large Whale Disentanglement Team (LWDT).

The organization received media attention in January 2006 due to its response to Willy, a northern bottlenose whale that became disorientated and later stranded after swimming up the River Thames into central London. A large operation began on the morning of Saturday 21 January and lasted until the evening when the whale died prior to being put to sleep by a specialist marine mammal veterinarian due to its poor health.

BDMLR has participated in or led rescue efforts that were launched to save either mass stranded pilot whales or pilot whales in danger of mass stranding at Loch Carnan in South Uist on the Outer Hebrides of Scotland in 2010, at Loch Carnan in South Uist on the Outer Hebrides of Scotland in 2011, at the Kyle of Durness on the North West Corner of the Highlands of Scotland in 2011, at Pittenweem in Fife on the East Coast of Scotland in 2012, at Portmahomack and Dornoch Point on the East Coast of the Highlands of Scotland in 2013 and Staffin Island on the West Coast of Scotland in 2015. In 2018, the BDMLR also took part in monitoring Benny, a beluga whale who had been sighted foraging in the Thames Estuary, and in 2021 managed Wally the walrus during his time at the Isles of Scilly where he unintentionally damaged unmanned dinghies by attempting to haul out on them.

BDMLR opened a purpose-built permanent seal hospital in Cornwall in September 2021. The facility is managed by a vet and supported by volunteer medics to provide care for up to ten seal pups. The centre is also used for trainings.

The charity also supports conservation goals around wildlife disturbance, pollution and climate change. It is a founding member of the Marine Animal Rescue Coalition.

Operation Nettie
In August 2015, BDMLR was contacted by the Centre for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, Massachusetts, to assist as part of the global response network for large whale disentanglement as a member of the Atlantic Large Whale Disentanglement Network (ALWDN). The task was to assist a humpback whale in Iceland (nicknamed "Nettie") that was entangled in fisheries debris (suspected at the time, and later confirmed, to be monofilament netting panels and lead-weighted line from a gill net array). This request followed failed attempts by local Coast Guard personnel to free the whale and requests from local whale-watching companies and NGOs.

BDMLR, through the International Whaling Commission (IWC), sought permission from the pro-whaling Icelandic government to allow an international rescue team to aid the whale on welfare grounds. After about a week, the Icelandic government granted permission to attempt a rescue of the whale.

The ALWDN decided to form an international response utilizing BDMLR manpower and resources, backed up by a team member from the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) in Cape Cod near Boston in the US. The following day, the team consisting of one member from IFAW and three from BDMLR, laden with over 150 kg of rescue equipment, met up in the Icelandic capital Reykjavik in preparation for the following day's rescue attempt. Due to the complexity of the entanglement, the size of the search area (Faxa Bay) where the whale was last spotted, and the unpredictable weather in the area, the team had allowed a minimum of a week to conduct the rescue.

This operation first involved "Nantucket sleigh rides," which proved to be inefficient as a means of facilitating rescue. The team devised a new method of attaching a buoy just behind the tail to stop the animal from diving and bring it to the surface for longer periods, giving the team more opportunities to cut the line when the whale presented its tail. Eventually, the team managed to attach the rig within a meter of the whale's tail, and the buoy was quickly pulled into position using a pulley arrangement they had constructed.

The new rig worked and also provided a new separate control line which the team could utilize. The team was now able to pull themselves up to within a meter of the thrashing tail, and each time the whale's tail breached the surface, careful cuts were made using the equipment. Eventually, the team managed to cut the lines on both sides of the tail stock, and the trailing line from underneath, freeing the whale.