British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) hotline received a telephone call early on Sunday morning on the 14th of September 2025 from a lovely concerned lady who was on holiday from Wales about a very young whitecoat seal pup on the beach at Porthgwidden in St Ives.
The area coordinator arranged for local volunteer marine mammal medics to check on the seal pup. Chris Webber, one of the volunteer medics, said "I arrived just before 8am, to find a small white coat that had settled herself just above the shoreline on the rising tide. After asking members of the public and having a good scout of the sea, there were no signs of the mother!"
Chris continues "Consulting with Alison on the phone and who was now on her way, it was becoming more obvious that this little pup had been abandoned. A few minutes later the pup decided to return to the sea. Alison and myself stayed to monitor and after about 20 minutes, the pup decided to beach herself again and rest. We monitored and noticed apart from the tired demeanour, she was sniffing a lot and she also went into a small shaking movement (shivering, possibly a fit). This was reported back to our area coordinator. So the decision was made to uplift and take her straight to seal hospital in Gweek. Small assessment on the beach - no visual wounds, temperature 36.3oC and weight was 12.3kg."
The pup was successfully transported over to the Cornish Seal Sanctuary in Gweek where she was assessed by the vet. She will be treated with antibiotics for her very fresh open umbilical and a small scratch to her eye. Other than that, she´s in good shape.
This gorgerous 24 hours old female whitecoat seal pup has been named "Cream Puff".
She is being fed a blended fish soup every 4 hours to keep up the level of feeding that her mum would have provided, but even so, it is impossible for the team to emulate the nutrient rich and calorie dense milk that ensures pups are able to put on around 1.5kg a day up to their weaning at around 17-21 days.
Young grey seal pups like Cream Puff, who still have their white coats, are much more vulnerable, too, which means the team have to take extra precautions in the hospital to ensure the pups are not stressed and get all the rest they need to put on weight for a healthy recovery. This is why for the first few days, pups will spend time in the quiet area of the hospital to rest.
Pup Update : 21st September 2025 - Cream Puff is progressing well and continues to have liquidised fish soup, soon the animal care team will wean her onto whole fish. The animal care team are starting to leave small fish in her pen to get her interested into eating them.
These photos below were taken on the 20th of September 2025 in the isolation area of the hospital.
Pup Update : 7th November 2025 - Cream Puff is enjoying playing with the bowl of seaweed in her hospital pen. It will not be too long before she is moved to the outside nursery pools to continue her rehabilitation.
Update - 24th November 2025 : A few days ago, Cream Puff was moved down to the outside nursery pool number 4 for her next stage of rehabilitation. This means she is on the road to recovery and also has a deeper pool to swim in. She currently weighs 15.9kg.
She is sharing this nursery pool with another rescued seal pup named Angel Delight, they are doing very well and learning how to compete for fish which are all vital skills they will need when they are released back out into the wild.
Her flipper tag ID number is SL332 (yellow).
This photo below was taken in the nursery pool on the 23rd of November 2025.
Update - 3rd December 2025 : This photo below was taken in the nursery pool on the 2nd of December 2025.
Update - 14th January 2026 : These photos below were taken in the nursery pool on the 14th of January 2026, she currently weighs 23.1kg.
Update - 28th January 2026 : This photo below was taken in the rehabilitation pool on the 28th of January 2026.
Update - 12th February 2026 : These photos below were taken in the rehabilitation pool on the 12th of February 2026. Cream Puff is slowly putting on weight.
Update : This photo below of Cream Puff was taken on the 4th of March 2026.
Update - 9th March 2026 : Cream Puff has been joined by Granita and Pancake into the rehabilitation pool.
Update - 21st March 2026 : This photo of Cream Puff was taken into the rehabilitation pool.
Update : Cream Puff along with Granita and Pancake were released back into the wild on 23rd of March 2026.
