On Saturday 21 July the Malta Tourism Authority (MTA) organised a clean-up of St George’s Bay as part of an educational campaign promoting St George’s Bay Blue Flag pilot beach status.

As part of the clean-up event, The Marine Rescue Team Unit of Nature Trust entertained children and adults alike. The team gave a presentation about cetaceans (whales and dolphins) followed by a dolphin rescue demonstration carried out on a life-sized dummy dolphin. The team demonstrated the techniques used to refloat a live-stranded dolphin that has been assessed to be a successful candidate for refloatation.

The team then gave way for the children to help in the rescue hands on while emphasising that in a real-life scenario, the public should never approach a stranded dolphin.

A number of games were organised for the children after the demonstration, including a quiz and some water games. Prizes were distributed to all the children.

Nature Trust’s Rescue Team consists of 10 volunteers made up of divers, scientists and on-call vets. The Rescue Team members are trained in marine mammal and turtle rescue and work with the authorities to help live stranded dolphins and turtles as well as to gather information from dead strandings. In case of a sighting/stranding, or if you would like to make a donation, please contact the Rescue Team coordinator on mob.: 9942-2085 or via email to: [email protected].