- Stranded sea otter pups are found each year off the coast of California, often stranded by storms.
- The Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach is partnering with the Monterey Bay Aquarium to pair stranded sea otter pups with surrogate mothers.
- This program is designed to teach puppies the life skills they need to be released back into the wild.
Approximately 10 to 15 sea otter pups are found stranded off the coast of California each year. This is often when a storm separates mother and child.
The Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach is partnering with the Monterey Bay Aquarium to pair sea otter surrogates with otter pups in hopes of teaching them life skills and releasing them back into the wild.
As part of the program, the aquarium was able to connect a currently unnamed pup with its first surrogate mother, called Ellie.
Endangered sea otters return to California, slowing wetland erosion
“Their mothers will be teaching them all the behaviors that we as humans can’t teach them,” said Megan Smiley, sea otter program manager at the Aquarium of the Pacific.
A sea otter stands as another sea otter emerges from the water at the Aquarium of the Pacific on April 11, 2024 in Long Beach, California. (Reuters/Mario Anzuoni)
“The adult female begins to imitate the behaviors that puppies have to learn, helping with grooming, helping with foraging, and doing things that humans cannot know, such as manipulating prey and opening shells. Help teach them. Teach them,” Smiley added.
California sea otters are a protected species. After being relentlessly hunted for their unique fur, they have the densest fur of any animal, with up to 1 million hairs per square inch. It was thought to be extinct until a colony of 50 individuals was discovered off the coast of Big Sur in the 1930s.
Their number now stands at about 3,000, but many more are needed not only for the survival of the species but also to protect ecosystems near California’s coast.
“Sea urchins are important predators that keep herbivores like sea urchins in check, for example, so they don’t overpopulate and take over kelp forests and eelgrass beds,” said a senior company official. Director Brett Long said. Pacific Aquarium.
Seagrass and kelp ecosystems are thought to generate biodiversity, protect against climate change and be powerful tools for carbon sequestration, Smiley said.
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Sea otters may be very cute and cuddly, but Long says they are also very territorial and are “just wolverines in the water.”
Their diet is expensive, as they consume 25% of their body weight each day in restaurant-quality seafood. That means a 45-pound otter will eat 10 to 12 pounds of seafood per day.
That means feeding the otters costs the aquarium $40,000 a year and requires ongoing fundraising.
The two aquariums have rescued eight stranded puppies and hope other organizations can join in the effort to increase wild populations and protect the California coast ecosystem.
“This is a bigger purpose,” Long said. “This is a more sophisticated challenge. So we’re investing, we’re investing a lot of money, and now we’re all learning and appreciating. You know, we’re seeing juvenile otters in the wild. I know I’m surviving. It’s an incredible feeling.”
