Christmas Pudding was rescued on Boxing Day 2025
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The Cornish Seal Sanctuary received a telephone call on Boxing Day from a concerned member of the public who found a seal in their airbnb holiday let garden in the picturesque Cadgwith Cove (a traditional Cornish fishing village within the Lizard Peninsula).
Heather and Ben, from the Seal Sanctuary Animal Care Team specialists were dispatched to check on the young grey seal pup. Obviously the pup had decided to find shelter from the harsh wind and driving winter weather along the coast.
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The team were quickly on the scene to assess the pup, the plan was to re-locate him onto a less busy beach if he was ok, but this did not happen, as they found him underweight with a high temperature, suffering from respiratory problems, wounds to his body and struggling to cope in the conditions. Also had some gum ulceration around his teeth.
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With welfare as our top priority, the pup was safely uplifted and taken to the Seal Sanctuary in Gweek for rehabilitation, where he will receive professional care and regular feeds to help the pup to regain his strength and grow to a healthy release weight over the coming months.
This 10-12 weeks old male pup has been named "Christmas Pudding".
Update : 2nd January 2026 -
Christmas Pudding will spend a few days in the isolation area of the hospital to get plently of rest!
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Update : 14th January 2026 - After lots of rest and treatment, Christmas Pudding is feeling much better and likes to help the animal care team by making a mess when they come into clean his pen in the hospital. Once he has completely recovered from his infection and has put on some more weight, he will graduate to the outside pools to continue his rehabilitation.
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Update - 24th January 2026 : Christmas Pudding was moved down to the outside nursery pools for his next stage of rehabilitation. This means he is on the road to recovery and also has a deeper pool to swim in. These photos below were taken on the 23rd of January 2026 in nursery pool number 1.
Pups in the nursery pools will be learning how to behave in the wild, interacting with other seals and also competing for their fish, which are all vital skills they will need when they are released back out into the wild.
His flipper tag ID number SL371 (yellow).
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Update - 28th January 2026 : This photo below was taken on the 28th of January 2026 in nursery pool number 1.
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Update - 5th February 2026 : These photos below were taken on the 4th of February 2026. He currently weighs 20.4kg.
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| Christmas Pudding (left) and Sierra (right) are enjoying saying hello to the lovely visitors that come to their window in the nursery pool.
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| Update : Christmas Pudding, Cheesecake, Mochi, Roulade and Sierra were released back into the wild on the 5th of March 2026.
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