SCS: Information on the Society

Information on the Society

Grey Seal

About the Society

A non-profit charitable organisation, the Society was set up in the spring of 1996 with the aim of protecting and conserving pinnipeds worldwide by:

Monitoring and attempting to minimise threats to pinniped conservation and welfare

Providing a comprehensive information and advisory service on pinniped-related issues to individuals, groups and the media

Maintaining close links with and information exchange among animal welfare and conservation groups, rescue and rehabilitation centres, research establishments, governments and other organisations

Developing and distributing educational material on pinnipeds, their nature and threats that they face

Among the specific topics of interest to the Society are:

Pollution (including marine debris, toxics, sewage, radiation, noise and oil pollution)

The setting up of protected areas and sanctuaries

Interactions with fisheries inc. entanglement in fishing gear

Culling, hunting and other control or exploitation of pinniped populations

Rescue and rehabilitation

Contacting the Society

	9 Todds Hill Saintfield County Down BT24 7AR Northern Ireland United Kingdom
	+44-(0)2844-821107	+44-(0)2897-510081
	info@pinnipeds.org
WWW	www.pinnipeds.org

How you can help

News
In order to protect seals, sea lions and walruses, the Society needs to keep up to date with events affecting them worldwide. If you see any pinniped-related news in your local media then please send the Society a copy.

Dictionaries and Translators
The Society receives many news articles and research papers written in languages other than English. If you can volunteer your services as a translator, even on a small scale, or can donate foreign language dictionaries then please contact the Society.

Publications
The Society maintains a resource library of books, research papers, reports and other literature on the different pinniped species. A list of the library contents can be found by downloading our Pinniped Reference Database and selecting those records with the Status field set to "@". If you are able to send the Society any publications not already held in our library then these would be of great use to us in our work.

Funding
It is important for the Society that it be properly funded in order that it can carry out its work effectively. Donations and ideas for potential sources of funding are therefore warmly welcomed.

Acknowledgements

Many individuals and organisations have provided kind assistance to the Seal Conservation Society in setting up and maintaining these web pages. Special thanks go to the following for their help:

Ian Runeckles for creating the Society's web site in 1997 and for contributing a great deal of his time and effort to the early development of the site.

Donald Meston for providing invaluable help with all aspects of the Society's use of information technology.

The following individuals very kindly assisted the Society with the development of the pinniped species information pages, either by reviewing text or by providing the Society with pinniped images. The Society's deep gratitude goes to these people for helping with this project:

Jorge Acevedo, Sarah Allen, Tom Arnbom, John Arnould, David Aurioles-Gamboa, Gunesin Aydemir, Susanjane Baird, Jason Baker, Bob Bao, Ivan Blokov, Daryl Boness, Erik Born, Tanya Brook, Michael Bryden, Simon Childerhouse, Holly Cleator, Phil Colla, Mitch Craig, Enrique Alberto Crespo, Jeremy David, Bruce Dix, Ross Flett, Charles Fowler, John Francis, Kathy Frost, Gerbrand Gaaff, Filippo Galimberti, Juan Pablo Gallo-Reynoso, Ian Gjertz, Simon Goldsworthy, Barra Gots, Ailsa Hall, Mike Hammill, Phil Hammond, Jan Hannah, Tero Härkönen, Björn Helander, Rodrigo Hucke-Gaete, Heikki Hyvärinen, Miguel Iñíguez, Cheryl Jacobson, Thea Johanos-Kam, William Johnson, Olle Karlsson, Yuri & Alena Kibirov, Cem Kiraç, Cassandra Koenen, Jouni Koskela, Tom Loughlin, Lloyd Lowry, Mark Lowry, Patricia Majluf, Rob Mattlin, Naomi McIntosh, Nathan McNally, Mike Meyer, Monica Muelbert, Erling Nordøy, Enrique Páez, Heather Ritchie, Keith Ronald, Anna Roos, David Rosen, Sandie Salazar, Matthias Schnellmann, John Sease, Peter Shaughnessy, Gay Sheffield, Don Siniff, Tero Sipilä, Rick Smith, Olavi Stenman, Rob Stewart, Wayne Stobo, Mike Strick, Jennie Sutton, Paul Thompson, Fritz Trillmich, Andrew Trites, Monica van Wensveen, Sue Wilson, and Anne York.

Thanks also to all the other individuals, too many to mention here, who pointed the Society in the right direction, passed on requests to others, offered to search for images if these could not be obtained from elsewhere, and otherwise assisted the Society with the pinniped species information pages. A special thanks to Donald Meston, Ian Runeckles, and Joseph Mortenson for commenting on the format of the pages, Angela Bates for proof-reading all of the pages and providing her valuable comments, and Brian Stewart for scanning many of the images from slides.

1998 was the International Year of the Ocean. The OCEAN98 web site contains a lot of information on this initiative and is well worth visiting. As part of the close co-operation between our organisations, Bud Slabbaert, the Executive Director of OCEAN98, has kindly permitted the Society to use the "sea" background on our web pages.

The Society has been awarded the Tiger Award for Excellence in Animal Site Design for this web site.