HELP was at hand after a three-month-old grey seal was washed up on a Kent beach.

After attempts to get the seal to swim back out to sea off Margate failed, ecologists decided it was best to transport it to the Goodwin Sands, a spot popular with Kent’s 600 to 800 seal population.

With the help of Ramsgate based seal-tour company, Horizon Sea Safaris, the British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) team are getting ready to release the pup later today.

It was found lying on the Main Sands by a Thanet District Council dog warden.

Brett Lewis, who led the rescue, said: "We worried it was going to be attacked by a dog so we decided to move it off the beach and let it rest before we took it back out to sea.

"It is perfectly normal behaviour for a seal of this age. It takes them about three weeks to wean from their mums and they spend three weeks on land exploring where they live. He is just got lost and he didn’t want to back to sea. He is not injured, he even tried to give me a bit of a bite so I m happy that he’s perfectly healthy."