On a beautiful white sandy beach at the edge of the Inner Hebridean island of Tiree, wildlife ranger Hayley Douglas is often the difference between life and death.
Through her hands can pass all creatures great and small: a hefty full-grown 600lb bottlenose dolphin inexplicably stranded on the beach, cute but rather sharp-toothed and snappy seal pups, seabirds with damaged wings and, further inland, otters and even shy, starving hedgehogs.
As Tiree’s nature ranger, she often takes in the stricken and the abandoned, injured and sick: some are nursed on her porch, others head off on an epic journey of over 100 miles involving car, lorry and ferry, for intensive care to get them back to health.
Sometimes, she has the difficult task of gathering up the less fortunate of Tiree’s wildlife, often victims of the island’s increasing popularity among tourists in cars and motorhomes, some affected by marine litter or sometimes just too sickly to survive.
Among the most challenging are episodes are when she’s called to the beach to handle a stranded mammal. Often, it is not a happy ending.
It’s why she felt an emotional tug when news emerged of a stranded pod of 77 pilot whales on an Orkney beach last week.
“I know the people who work on these kinds of strandings,” she says “and I really feel for them.
“These animals communicate with each other while they’re on the beach, which is heartrending. A is having to be the person that has to make the decision that these animals can’t survive.”
A glimpse into her life as ranger on the small but busy Hebridean haven for wildlife, home to around 653 islanders and where the population swells to over 2,000 as tourists pour in, features in the second series of BBC Scotland’s fly-on-the-wall documentary, Island Crossings.
Filmed across a year, the latest series follows ferry operator Caledonian MacBrayne – CalMac – as its staff and passengers navigate the challenges of living and travelling around Scotland’s west coast islands.
Cameras had unprecedented access behind the scenes during one of the ferry firm’s most troubled spells as vessels on key routes developed serious troubles, with services thrown into chaos and knock-on impacts for passengers, businesses and island life.
In the case of roll on-roll off ferry, the 39-year-old MV Hebridean Isles, opening programmes in the series follow it as it limps into dry dock in Aberdeen.
There, engineers battle to figure out how to repair a propeller problem amid mounting fears that it might never be fixed and, even once it is, how much longer the vessel can continue to operate.
The new series also highlights the implications an unreliable ferry services brings for islanders and businesses that regard them as a vital lifeline. Among them, Stornoway-based skincare company, ishga Skincare, which uses locally harvested seaweed in products which are sold around the world.
Run by Malcolm Macrae, he reveals to the programme how the business, with its 25 employees, hinges on a ferry service that is reliable.
But while the ferries’ importance to islanders is obvious, the vessels’ role in supporting wildlife might be less well known.
For Tiree ranger Hayley, transporting an injured or sick animal to the mainland for treatment via the ferry service can be the difference between it surviving or not.
In some cases, as the new series shows, the ‘patient’ can be as small as an underweight hedgehog in need of extra care to get it through its winter hibernation.
Cameras follow Hayley as she prepares it and an abandoned seal pup for the cross water journey from Tiree to the mainland and then onwards to Hessilhead Wildlife Rescue Centre in Ayrshire.
The trip involves taking both in her ranger’s van to an island haulier who has agreed to transport the pair during the ferry crossing: the seal in the back a truck and the hedgehog in a box tucked in the passenger footwell.
Going to such lengths for a hedgehog might seem excessive, but Hayley says all creatures, regardless of size, are given the same level of care.
“Everything we can do to help is worth it,” she says. “I think of the amount of times I’ve seen animals injured because of us, whether that’s because they’ve been hit by a car or affected by plastic in the sea.
“All wildlife is struggling and anything we can do is beneficial. And it balances out the time when it’s something we can’t do to help.
“So many rescues are unsuccessful for so many reasons.”
Recently, Hayley, the island’s ranger for almost five years, had the distressing task of dealing with the remains of two otters killed on one of Tiree’s roads.
It led to her sharing photographs of them, and an appeal for motorists – locals as well as visitors – to be mindful of the dangers posed by vehicles on the island’s roads.
The issue, she says, has grown with the rising numbers of tourists visiting the island, known for its pristine beaches, music festival and surfing.
“A big part of my job is engagement with visitors and locals. That could be at the ferry terminal speaking to people especially if they’re coming to camp with a vehicle,” she says.
“They can’t do that on Tiree without having already booked a site.
“People visiting here might not really understand the crofting landscape. They might think it’s okay to drive across an unfenced area which is common grazing land. That land gets damaged by car tyres.
“And anywhere in countryside can get issues with dogs being off the lead. Folk don’t realise that the dog might come to them when they’re in the garden, but out and about in a new place there are new smells and sounds and it will take off.”
She adds: “The main challenge here is people. It’s a crofting island with wildlife and it’s also a place of tourism.”
In recent weeks she’s dealt with a beached adult male sperm whale and provided important information for the Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme (SMASS) which tries to untangle the reasons why sea mammals end up on the shore.
To help the researchers gauge the size of the whale, which was dead and decomposing when it was found, Hayley lay down on the sand beside it and sent a photograph along with her own measurements.
It’s not known what caused the 15m-long adult male to die, but there has been a growing pattern of younger sperm whales appearing in Scottish waters suggesting a shift in their range.
The eight-part BBC Scotland series, which returns on Sunday, focuses on CalMac, following some of its 35 vessels and crews as they serve 26 west coast islands.
Spanning 30 different routes from Lewis in the north to Arran in the south, the risk of something derailing the timetable is never far away, whether it’s harsh weather conditions halting sailings, break downs or frustration over delays to the arrival of new ferries.
In particularly moving scenes, the programme also follows Hayley and a group of Tiree windsurfers as they desperately try to save a beached bottlenose dolphin using a makeshift stretcher made from a farmer’s sack.
Gently, they place the sack beneath the stricken dolphin and slowly carry it back to the water.
Sadly, however, their efforts were in vain.
Dealing with loss of life is the downside of her role as a ranger, she adds.
“It can be difficult, but we have got to remember that we don’t just find wild animals, there’s usually something wrong with them that’s led to them being found.
“Sometimes it’s too late to help them.”
The new series of Island Crossings, which launches on Sunday BBC Scotland and BBC iPlayer, is an IWC Media production for BBC Scotland
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