British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) hotline received a telephone call on the 28th of August 2025 from a member of the public who was concerned about a very young whitecoat seal pup on the beach at Crooklets in Bude. The area coordinator arranged for local volunteer marine mammal medics to check on the seal.   Michelle, one of the volunteer medics, said "this very young whitecoat pup needed constant monitoring whilst mum at sea and some sadly because of severe public disturbance over the bank holiday weekend.   After 24 hours of monitoring by a team of medics, a decision was made for this pup uplifted, due to being light in weight and separation from mum and due to gathering crowds and incoming tide." The pup taken to a local veterinary surgery overnight after care and medication.   The next morning the pup was relayed by car by the some of the BDMLR marine volunteers medics from the Vets holding facilities in North Cornwall to the Cornish Seal Sanctuary at Gweek for her care and rehabilitation.

Photo Credit : Michelle Robinson-Clement - BDMLR

This 4-5 days old grey male whitecoat seal pup has been named "Banoffee".   For 2025/26 rescue season, the Animal Care Team has chosen "Cakes & Desserts" Theme for names and once the team see each new arrival, they expect to have a pretty good idea which name belongs to which pup. Upon arrival at the Seal Sanctuary´s hospital, the local vet was called to carry out an assessment of the pup and prescribed a course of antibiotics. He is being fed a blended fish soup every 4 hours to keep up the level of feeding that his 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 Banoffee, 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.

Banoffee has sadly passed away on the 5th of September 2025; it is always very sad when one of the rescued pups dies but sometimes these little ones just don´t have enough antibodies and strength in them to pull through, despite the best efforts of all the Sanctuary´s Animal Care Specialists.