A plea has been launched for volunteers to come forward and help protect the north-east coastline.
Coastguard teams from Banff and Moray have asked for local people to consider signing up with the agency to ensure that life-saving duties, including missing person searches, can continue to be carried out.
A message posted online by the Moray Coastguard team detailed the need for more volunteers and has since been shared almost 100 times.
And last night, a spokeswoman for the Coastguard Agency urged people considering a role in the Banffshire area to make contact.
She said: “There are approximately 3,500 volunteer Coastguard rescue officers in the UK, divided up into 350 teams that are strategically placed around the British and Northern Irish coastline.
“Coastguard rescue teams like Moray are made up of highly trained staff who specialise in search and rescue techniques including, rope rescue, water rescue, mud rescue and cliff rescue.
“The officers are also trained in first aid, incident prevention and assisting rescue helicopter operations.”
“It takes a special kind of person to volunteer as a Coastguard,” the spokeswoman added.
“They come from all parts of the community but all have a shared trust in each other. It could be you helping to save a life or reuniting someone with their family.
“It’ll stretch you in ways you’ll never expect and you’ll find you can do things you never dreamed of doing.”
In Aberdeenshire, Coastguard teams have bases in Portsoy, Banff, Gardenstown, Fraserburgh, Peterhead, Cruden Bay and Stonehaven.
They are regularly called into action to assist police, ambulance and lifeboat crews with searches of the coastline and recovery operations.
