British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) is a British charity established in 1988 and is the United Kingdom's leading frontline marine mammal response organisation. It utilises a network of trained volunteers around the country to respond to marine mammals potentially in need of assistance around the country via a public 24hr hotline and callout system. The organisations main areas of operation are in the United Kingdom and its territorial waters; however, the charity is often requested to provide assistance and training in marine mammal rescue by international governments and charitable organisations due to their vast wealth of knowledge, experience and available equipment including Canada, the Falkland Islands, Kenya, Ireland, Italy, Kazakhstan, Malta and Abu Dhabi amongst others. BDMLR has developed an internationally renowned 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 (currently on its 8th edition), that is used globally by various governmental and non-governmental organisations to deal with 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 specialised 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 after developing these techniques specifically for British waters formed the BDMLR Large Whale Disentanglement Team (LWDT) made up entirely of trained volunteers ready to respond to entangled cetaceans in British and European waters. The organization was the subject of widespread global media coverage in January 2006 due to its efforts in leading the response to Willy, a northern bottlenose whale (the "River Thames whale") which 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. In more recent years, amongst the thousands of call out each year attended by BDMLR, the organisation spearheaded the major 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