Aquarium Of The Pacific Takes In Orphaned Sea Otter Pup To Raise

LONG BEACH, CA — For the first time in history, the Aquarium of the Pacific is fostering a rescued sea otter pup with the purpose of helping it learn the vital skills needed to survive before it's released back into the ocean.

The almost 5-month-old orphaned pup was rescued off the coast of Santa Cruz and was transported down to Long Beach. She is paired with one of the aquarium's surrogate otter moms Millie, an 8-year-old Southern Sea Otter who has served as a mom three other times before at the aquarium.

While the aquarium has fostered sea otter pups before, this is the first time a pup has been paired with a surrogate to be re-released into the wild. Brett Long, senior director of birds and mammals at the aquarium, said that without a mother the pup wouldn't be able to learn basic skills needed to survive.

"One of the challenging things about rehabilitating sea otters is that pups do not inherently understand how to be otters in the wild," Long said. "They have to be taught how to groom, how to manipulate and play with different prey items and learn how to socialize with other otters."

Pup 968, who has no name other than her number, and Millie spend their days swimming around a closed-off surrogacy area to avoid any contact with humans. According to Sea Otter Program Manager Megan Smylie, it's important not to let the pup get too used to interacting with people because it could jeopardize her safety in the wild.

In fact, Millie herself was once a rehabilitated otter that was released back into the ocean, but was re-captured because she was too social with people, Smiley told Patch.

"The only time that they see us without a disguise on is during handling them, which is potentially aversive," Smiley said. "We weigh them every other week to make sure that the pup is gaining weight. That is the only time they see our true human form."

The Aquarium of the Pacific was able to get the opportunity to foster the pup through a partnership with the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Sea Otter Surrogacy program. The partnership began in 2020 and was the reason the Long Beach Aquarium built the behind-the-scenes facility, funded by a grant from the State Coastal Conservancy Sea Otter Recovery Program.

The surrogacy facility can house up to four orphaned pups and their surrogate mothers at a time, Long said. Long said anywhere between 10 to 15 sea otter pups get stranded yearly, so the goal is to help increase capacity to accommodate them.

"We've been working with our partners at the Aquarium of the Pacific for more than three years to reach this moment, and we're excited they're now ready to welcome orphaned pups for surrogacy," said Jessica Fujii, manager of the Sea Otter Program at Monterey Bay Aquarium. "Sea otters help maintain the health of kelp forests and wetlands on California's coast. This milestone is advancing our work to help sea otters recover from being hunted to near extinction and help strengthen our coastal ecosystems."