By . Frances Hubbard . PUBLISHED: . 20:02 EST, 13 December 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 10:07 EST, 14 December 2013 . Snugly wrapped in a stripey towel, the little orphan with heart-melting black eyes wriggles impatiently as he waits for his next feed. He doesn’t have long to wait, and soon he’s tucking into his lunch with as much gusto as any hungry infant. As any parent knows, baby meal times can be messy and time-consuming affairs. So try to imagine what it’s like being entrusted with the care of 58 noisy . . . seal pups. These impossibly cute waifs and strays are being cared for by exhausted staff at the RSPCA rescue centre in East Winch, West Norfolk, after an unprecedented number were brought in for emergency care following last week’s freak storms and tidals surges. Too young to swim properly or fend for themselves, they were torn from their mothers in the high seas and swept helplessly on to the beaches of East Anglia. Scroll down for video . Vulnerable: 58 baby seal pups have been rescued from the East Anglian coast after last week's storm surge . A record 60 starving and pitiful creatures were brought to East Winch by members of the public or RSPCA officers, and staff are working around the clock to keep them alive in a hastily- assembled creche. ‘It’s been absolute chaos,’ says bleary-eyed East Winch manager Alison Charles. ‘We have never had this many seals before in one go, and I’ve been here for two decades. ‘There was barely a chance to think. It was one arrival after another: bam, bam bam. ‘They started coming in on the day after the storm, and by Saturday we realised that we were short of pretty much everything we needed to cope. I went to the local Tesco and started throwing supplies into my trolley as if I was on Supermarket Sweep. ‘I worked through my last weekend off and everyone’s putting in extra hours.’ (If anyone reading this has an industrial liquidiser going spare, by the way, East Winch is still looking for one. Their existing model is threatening a nervous breakdown under the stress of catering on such a large scale.) For, without the ready supply of their mothers’ high-calorie milk, if these pups are to have any chance of survival, they need up to five meals a day of a soup made from mashed-up raw fish and an oral rehydration solution. Helping Hand: A seal being fed and cared for at the RSPCA wildlife hospital in East Winch, Norfolk . But getting nourishment into the . unweaned pups is no easy job: they have to be fed with a tube and seals, . being torpedo-shaped, are very good at slipping through human hands. The process of feeding all the infants takes a laborious two hours — . before it starts all over again. Oh . yes, and the staff also have to administer antibiotics, tend wounds, . scrub the floors and care for the other creatures — from swans to . hedgehogs — that come into the centre. No . wonder that the devoted wildlife officers, clad in regulation white . boiler suits and wellies, seem a little frayed round the edges. The 21 core staff have called . in favours from retired old hands and there is even an RSPCA Chief . Inspector — Simon Davies, usually based in Staffordshire — stoically . washing feeding tubes at the kitchen sink. The nerve centre for the seal rescue is a white-tiled isolation unit with 17 cubicles. The unit might be designed to house anything from foxes to otters, but it’s currently wall-to-wall pups, all of them sharing quarters. The usual occupants, among them 140 sickly hedgehogs, have been moved to temporary accommodation in the visitor’s centre. Andrex puppy irresistible, not only do the big-eyed seal babies look adorable, but the cry of a motherless seal pup is pitiful and disconcertingly human. Seal of approval: One rather disheveled pup gets to know Frances Hubbard . Their wailing triggers my maternal instincts, but the impulse to comfort a pup with a cuddle must be resisted. I . am told I am not allowed to touch them and RSPCA staff try to keep . physical contact to an absolute minimum. The pups need to be released . back into the wild and it is important they do not form attachments to . humans. Whether the humans can resist forming attachments to the pups is another matter. Alison confesses: . ‘They . are gorgeous animals so it’s easy to get a bit soppy about them, but we . remember at all times that they’re going back to the wild and their own . kind. ‘The reality is . that they are also strong, with very sharp teeth and the older ones can . be aggressive when they feel under threat. ‘One . lady who brought in a pup was bitten very badly on the cheek, simply . because the animal was terrified and was defending itself. But the . bottom line is that if we didn’t take them in, they would starve. Some . pups have arrived in a terrible state, seriously underweight and having . been mauled by dogs and other adult seals on beaches. It’s heartbreaking . to see them like that.’ Hanging about: A group of seals lay on the floor of the RSPCA wildlife hospital, waiting for their next feed . As . hard as it is to resist picking them up, the advice to members of the . public who find an abandoned seal is clear: leave them alone and call . the RSPCA. Each of the seals is given a name: not for ‘cutesy’ reasons, . Alison insists, but to help identify and track them, and a system has . been devised for keeping a record of each season’s arrivals. Every year, they are tagged and named according to a theme. In 2013, that theme has been ‘breakfasts.’ I spot Frosted Flake, Coddled Egg, Poached Egg, Scrambled Egg and Boiled Egg among the names written on marker boards pinned beside one of the cubicles, along with the patients’ medical notes. While their beseeching black eyes and winsome expressions would melt even Scrooge’s heart, there is a downside to housing these little orphans — the pong. Advice: Staff say the best thing for members of the public to do if they discover a pup is to call the RSPCA . As I enter a room containing 60 of them, I am almost knocked over by the stench of what seems like raw herring combined with a powerful undertow of wet dog and public convenience. The majority of the pups at the wildlife hospital are believed to have come from a 440-strong breeding colony at Horsey Gap near Great Yarmouth, further east on the Norfolk coast. The storms resulted in one of the highest tides on record for this stretch of coast, and struck at the worst possible time for grey seals, bang in the middle of the pupping season. What should happen is that a grey seal pup stays on land for their first three to four weeks, protected by his or her mother and gorging on her nutrient-rich milk. Pups increase in weight from 13kg to around 45kg during this time, building up valuable fat reserves. Or to use an analogy, they grow from cocker spaniels into alsatians. Out and about: Frances Hubbard stands next to a swimming pool - home to numerous rescued pups . The juveniles are protected from the cold by their characteristic thick, white coats, which offer high insulation but little water resistance. At a month old, the babies are weaned and a sleeker coat replaces their baby fluff, but if they are swept off the beaches before this time it can be catastrophic. Their white coats, which are designed for insulation, become waterlogged and many drown. Those who find land are often injured and always hungry. And survival is not guaranteed, even among the lucky ones who are rescued. The phenomenal rate of weight gain achieved in the wild is simply impossible to replicate with handrearing. The solution is to keep the pups for up to five months before they are fit enough to return to the sea. Now that East Winch, the biggest centre in the country, is at full stretch, other RSPCA sites are having to take some of the strain. I watch as Fried Egg, a 19kg pup, is wrapped in a mesh stretcher in preparation for the long journey to a centre in Taunton, Somerset. Apparently, seals are quite happy lolling in the back of a van for the duration of a road trip and generally go to sleep, lulled by the vibrations of the vehicle. The driver, however, is advised not to stop at any service stations. These pups can be as naughty as any human toddler. A baby seal, even an underweight and sickly patient, is surprisingly fast and powerful. Adorable: The RSPCA has now launched a crisis appeal to support the pups' rehabilitation . At one point during my visit, Alison has to break from sorting out medicines to stop one of her charges from escaping through a momentarily unguarded door and trying to take a swim in a trough of disinfectant used to clean staff wellies. The pups are kept in the isolation unit until they are six weeks old, when they move to shallow indoor bathing pools until they are adult enough to go in larger pools outside. Once they are old enough, they will be taken on stretchers and released into the water at Sutton Bridge near . King’s Lynn, enabling them to swim into The Wash, and out to sea on the outgoing tide. But first there are thousands of meals to prepare and dish up. Not surprisingly, with each seal costing £22 a week to feed — and expected to stay at East Winch for five months — the RSPCA has launched a crisis appeal to support their rehabilitation. They hope people will give enthusiastically to help save these charismatic creatures. As Alison says: ‘Christmas hasn’t been too kind to these seals so far, but hopefully the public’s generosity will bring them a little bit of festive cheer.’ To make a donation towards the pups’ upkeep, text the RSPCA on 70070 with a message saying SEA L01 followed by the amount donated (e.g. SEA L01 £3). The call will cost the chosen amount plus the standard network rate message.
Staff at RSPCA rescue centre in East Winch, West Norfolk helping 58 seals .
Were torn from mothers in high seas and swept on beaches of East Anglia .
Needs five meals a day of mashed-up fish and re-hydration solution soup .
By . Frances Hubbard . PUBLISHED: . 20:02 EST, 13 December 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 10:07 EST, 14 December 2013 . Snugly wrapped in a stripey towel, the little orphan with heart-melting black eyes wriggles impatiently as he waits for his next feed. He doesn’t have long to wait, and soon he’s tucking into his lunch with as much gusto as any hungry infant. As any parent knows, baby meal times can be messy and time-consuming affairs. So try to imagine what it’s like being entrusted with the care of 58 noisy . . . seal pups. These impossibly cute waifs and strays are being cared for by exhausted staff at the RSPCA rescue centre in East Winch, West Norfolk, after an unprecedented number were brought in for emergency care following last week’s freak storms and tidals surges. Too young to swim properly or fend for themselves, they were torn from their mothers in the high seas and swept helplessly on to the beaches of East Anglia. Scroll down for video . Vulnerable: 58 baby seal pups have been rescued from the East Anglian coast after last week's storm surge . A record 60 starving and pitiful creatures were brought to East Winch by members of the public or RSPCA officers, and staff are working around the clock to keep them alive in a hastily- assembled creche. ‘It’s been absolute chaos,’ says bleary-eyed East Winch manager Alison Charles. ‘We have never had this many seals before in one go, and I’ve been here for two decades. ‘There was barely a chance to think. It was one arrival after another: bam, bam bam. ‘They started coming in on the day after the storm, and by Saturday we realised that we were short of pretty much everything we needed to cope. I went to the local Tesco and started throwing supplies into my trolley as if I was on Supermarket Sweep. ‘I worked through my last weekend off and everyone’s putting in extra hours.’ (If anyone reading this has an industrial liquidiser going spare, by the way, East Winch is still looking for one. Their existing model is threatening a nervous breakdown under the stress of catering on such a large scale.) For, without the ready supply of their mothers’ high-calorie milk, if these pups are to have any chance of survival, they need up to five meals a day of a soup made from mashed-up raw fish and an oral rehydration solution. Helping Hand: A seal being fed and cared for at the RSPCA wildlife hospital in East Winch, Norfolk . But getting nourishment into the . unweaned pups is no easy job: they have to be fed with a tube and seals, . being torpedo-shaped, are very good at slipping through human hands. The process of feeding all the infants takes a laborious two hours — . before it starts all over again. Oh . yes, and the staff also have to administer antibiotics, tend wounds, . scrub the floors and care for the other creatures — from swans to . hedgehogs — that come into the centre. No . wonder that the devoted wildlife officers, clad in regulation white . boiler suits and wellies, seem a little frayed round the edges. The 21 core staff have called . in favours from retired old hands and there is even an RSPCA Chief . Inspector — Simon Davies, usually based in Staffordshire — stoically . washing feeding tubes at the kitchen sink. The nerve centre for the seal rescue is a white-tiled isolation unit with 17 cubicles. The unit might be designed to house anything from foxes to otters, but it’s currently wall-to-wall pups, all of them sharing quarters. The usual occupants, among them 140 sickly hedgehogs, have been moved to temporary accommodation in the visitor’s centre. Andrex puppy irresistible, not only do the big-eyed seal babies look adorable, but the cry of a motherless seal pup is pitiful and disconcertingly human. Seal of approval: One rather disheveled pup gets to know Frances Hubbard . Their wailing triggers my maternal instincts, but the impulse to comfort a pup with a cuddle must be resisted. I . am told I am not allowed to touch them and RSPCA staff try to keep . physical contact to an absolute minimum. The pups need to be released . back into the wild and it is important they do not form attachments to . humans. Whether the humans can resist forming attachments to the pups is another matter. Alison confesses: . ‘They . are gorgeous animals so it’s easy to get a bit soppy about them, but we . remember at all times that they’re going back to the wild and their own . kind. ‘The reality is . that they are also strong, with very sharp teeth and the older ones can . be aggressive when they feel under threat. ‘One . lady who brought in a pup was bitten very badly on the cheek, simply . because the animal was terrified and was defending itself. But the . bottom line is that if we didn’t take them in, they would starve. Some . pups have arrived in a terrible state, seriously underweight and having . been mauled by dogs and other adult seals on beaches. It’s heartbreaking . to see them like that.’ Hanging about: A group of seals lay on the floor of the RSPCA wildlife hospital, waiting for their next feed . As . hard as it is to resist picking them up, the advice to members of the . public who find an abandoned seal is clear: leave them alone and call . the RSPCA. Each of the seals is given a name: not for ‘cutesy’ reasons, . Alison insists, but to help identify and track them, and a system has . been devised for keeping a record of each season’s arrivals. Every year, they are tagged and named according to a theme. In 2013, that theme has been ‘breakfasts.’ I spot Frosted Flake, Coddled Egg, Poached Egg, Scrambled Egg and Boiled Egg among the names written on marker boards pinned beside one of the cubicles, along with the patients’ medical notes. While their beseeching black eyes and winsome expressions would melt even Scrooge’s heart, there is a downside to housing these little orphans — the pong. Advice: Staff say the best thing for members of the public to do if they discover a pup is to call the RSPCA . As I enter a room containing 60 of them, I am almost knocked over by the stench of what seems like raw herring combined with a powerful undertow of wet dog and public convenience. The majority of the pups at the wildlife hospital are believed to have come from a 440-strong breeding colony at Horsey Gap near Great Yarmouth, further east on the Norfolk coast. The storms resulted in one of the highest tides on record for this stretch of coast, and struck at the worst possible time for grey seals, bang in the middle of the pupping season. What should happen is that a grey seal pup stays on land for their first three to four weeks, protected by his or her mother and gorging on her nutrient-rich milk. Pups increase in weight from 13kg to around 45kg during this time, building up valuable fat reserves. Or to use an analogy, they grow from cocker spaniels into alsatians. Out and about: Frances Hubbard stands next to a swimming pool - home to numerous rescued pups . The juveniles are protected from the cold by their characteristic thick, white coats, which offer high insulation but little water resistance. At a month old, the babies are weaned and a sleeker coat replaces their baby fluff, but if they are swept off the beaches before this time it can be catastrophic. Their white coats, which are designed for insulation, become waterlogged and many drown. Those who find land are often injured and always hungry. And survival is not guaranteed, even among the lucky ones who are rescued. The phenomenal rate of weight gain achieved in the wild is simply impossible to replicate with handrearing. The solution is to keep the pups for up to five months before they are fit enough to return to the sea. Now that East Winch, the biggest centre in the country, is at full stretch, other RSPCA sites are having to take some of the strain. I watch as Fried Egg, a 19kg pup, is wrapped in a mesh stretcher in preparation for the long journey to a centre in Taunton, Somerset. Apparently, seals are quite happy lolling in the back of a van for the duration of a road trip and generally go to sleep, lulled by the vibrations of the vehicle. The driver, however, is advised not to stop at any service stations. These pups can be as naughty as any human toddler. A baby seal, even an underweight and sickly patient, is surprisingly fast and powerful. Adorable: The RSPCA has now launched a crisis appeal to support the pups' rehabilitation . At one point during my visit, Alison has to break from sorting out medicines to stop one of her charges from escaping through a momentarily unguarded door and trying to take a swim in a trough of disinfectant used to clean staff wellies. The pups are kept in the isolation unit until they are six weeks old, when they move to shallow indoor bathing pools until they are adult enough to go in larger pools outside. Once they are old enough, they will be taken on stretchers and released into the water at Sutton Bridge near . King’s Lynn, enabling them to swim into The Wash, and out to sea on the outgoing tide. But first there are thousands of meals to prepare and dish up. Not surprisingly, with each seal costing £22 a week to feed — and expected to stay at East Winch for five months — the RSPCA has launched a crisis appeal to support their rehabilitation. They hope people will give enthusiastically to help save these charismatic creatures. As Alison says: ‘Christmas hasn’t been too kind to these seals so far, but hopefully the public’s generosity will bring them a little bit of festive cheer.’ To make a donation towards the pups’ upkeep, text the RSPCA on 70070 with a message saying SEA L01 followed by the amount donated (e.g. SEA L01 £3). The call will cost the chosen amount plus the standard network rate message.
for by exhausted staff at the RSPCA rescue centre in East Winch, West Norfolk, after an mothers in the high seas and swept helplessly on to the beaches of East Anglia. Scroll down for survival, they need up to five meals a day of a soup made from mashed-up raw fish and an oral