Grey and common seal pup rehabilitation has become a significant wildlife welfare activity in the UK, with a network of specialist centres achieving high release success rates for orphaned and injured pups.
Seal pup rehabilitation involves genuine welfare costs during the recovery process: handling and feeding stress, the artificial social environment of rehabilitation facilities, and the necessary quarantine from wild seals. These welfare costs are justified by the outcome — successfully rehabilitated seals returned to the wild with good post-release survival. The welfare impact of inappropriate public intervention with apparently abandoned pups is severe — pups approached by humans flee into the sea without the fat reserves needed for survival, or are genuinely separated from mothers temporarily resting offshore. Public education about when intervention is appropriate — and when observation is the correct response — is a critical component of seal welfare communication.