New Year Honours 2023: Cornish seal conservationist awarded

Sue Sayer MBE credited a "huge team effort"

A leading marine conservationist has been appointed an MBE in the New Year Honours list for being a "driving force" in the study of a seal species.

Sue Sayer, founder of the Cornwall Seal Group Research Trust (CSGRT), received the honour for services to wildlife protection and conservation.

Ms Sayer, 60, has helped protect the globally-rare grey seal for 20 years.

Ms Sayer, from Hayle, Cornwall, said she was accepting the honour "on behalf of everyone".

"It's not really about me, it's about the huge team effort that I am the voice for," she told BBC Radio Cornwall.

"We have thousands of volunteers who just survey routinely all the time, they create the evidence, so it's a huge team effort."

The CSGRT supports a large network of "active citizen scientists" across the South West, work which has made Cornwall's grey seals some of the best studied populations in the world.

Describing their "phenomenal efforts" in 2021, she said they had carried out more than 5,000 surveys, processed more than 120,000 photographs for in excess of 12,000 seals and identified 134 entangled seals.

Other honours recipients from Cornwall include:

• Pauline Anne Barker, 58, who has been appointed an MBE for Services to Swimming in South West England.

• Two Minute Beach Clean campaign founder Martin Dorey, from Bude, Cornwall, who has been appointed an MBE for services to recycling and the environment.

• David Geoffrey Hall-Davies, of St Just, Cornwall, who has been appointed an MBE for services to young people and to the community of Cornwall.

• Judith Rachel Backus, of Truro, Cornwall, who has been appointed an MBE for services to disadvantaged people in Cornwall.

• Ian Jones, of Truro, Cornwall, who has been appointed an MBE for services to volunteering in Cornwall.

• Rosalie Whitlock, 68, from Penzance, who has received the British Empire Medal for services to Maritime Safety.

• Floyd Steadman, from Ludgvan, Cornwall, who has been appointed an OBE for services to Rugby Union Football, to Education and to Charity. Michael Arthur Weeks, of Camborne, Cornwall, who has received the British Empire Medal for services to cricket in Cornwall.

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