Aquarium of the Pacific gives orphaned otter pups the chance to return to the wild (2024)

Another sea otter pup has moved into the Aquarium of the Pacific — but with help from her new surrogate mother, it may eventually be released back into the wild.

This is the first time a sea otter pup has come to the Long Beach aquarium with the goal of returning to the wild. The effort is thanks to a partnership with the Aquarium of the Pacific — which has cared for sea otters deemed unfit to live in the wild since it’s opening in 1998 — and the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

“We’re thrilled to be able to help this species recover by expanding our conservation programs,” Brett Long, the aquarium’s senior director of birds and mammals, said during a Thursday, April 11, press conference, “(and) to help stranded sea otter cubs get a chance at returning to the wild.”

The Aquarium of the Pacific officially signed on to the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Sea Otter Surrogacy Program in 2020, and has taken myriad steps to increase its capacity to care for the creatures — including building a behind-the-scenes sea otter care facility.

“The aquarium built a specially designed facility that allows us to properly care for both an adult sea otter and hopefully a releasable pup,” Long said, “and maintain it in a way that (ensures the cub) can be safely released back to the wild.”

Orphaned sea otter pups will be paired with surrogate mothers and kept in the special facility as part of the program.

The aquarium’s newest resident is a 4.5-month old cub dubbed “968,” who was rescued near Santa Cruz after being stranded. It has been matched with Millie, an adult otter who lives at the Aquarium of the Pacific.

Millie was actually a stranded orphan herself, Long said — but was taken into a surrogacy program.

She passed all of the tests and was eventually released back into the wild as an adult, Long said, but had to be brought to the Long Beach aquarium after being habituated to humans who had been feeding her.

“She got used to people and then had to be brought in.” Long said. “As cute and cuddly as otters might look — they are not. It was a human safety hazard.”

The new care facility at the Aquarium of the Pacific was specifically designed to prevent orphaned otter pups from physically seeing their human caretakers or realizing that humans are providing them with food.

Caretakers who require more direct contact with the otter pups must wear welder’s masks and body shrouds to disguise their human figures.

“With lots of wildlife rehabilitation, one of the challenges is the animals simply get used to being around people,” Long said. “So when you release them, they approach people, and that generally doesn’t lead to a good outcome in most rehabilitation contexts.”

It’s a particular problem with sea otters, he added, because they live near populated coastal areas and are more likely to run into people than other sea creatures.

“The goal is to just minimize that opportunity for them to recognize that humans are either a positive or a food source,” Long said, “so that they lead a more successful life (in the wild).”

The otter care facility is also out of view from aquarium visitors — though folks can learn about the facility and the Sea Otter Surrogacy Program through posted signage and educational kiosks.

Besides limiting contact with people, another crucial aspect of the program is, of course, the surrogate otter moms themselves.

Otters don’t inherently understand how to live in the wild, Long said. Babies have be taught how to find food, socialize and keep themselves alive from adult otters.

So if an otter pup is stranded, they stand little chance of surviving. Pups can become stranded for various reasons but the most frequent is large storm systems or weather patterns causing moms and pups to be separated.

But with a surrogate parent, those orphaned babies can learn all of the necessar skills to survive on their own once they reach maturity.

“While the sea otter is in our care, it has to demonstrate and meet different behavioral milestones, which include learning how to groom, forage and manipulate prey items on its own,” Long said, “in addition to passing veterinary exams to show they’re healthy.”

Each otter pup is different, Long said, but it will typically take nine to 14 months for their surrogate mothers to teach them all the necessary skills before they’re deemed eligible to go back into the wild.

The new otter care facility is a massive milestone for the surrogacy program shared between the Long Beach and Monterey Bay aquariums — as it’s effectively doubled the size of the program.

The Monterey Bay program, which was underway for nearly two decades before the Aquarium of the Pacific signed on, has the capacity to house about four orphaned otter pups each year.

Long Beach’s new facility is also able to take in four stranded otter cubs annually.

“Stranded sea otters can be highly variable. We probably see anywhere (from) 10 to 15 stranded cubs per year,” Long said. “The goal is to continue to increase the capacity (so)we can accommodate that many otters.”

The program is a crucial step toward helping the southern sea otter population continue to recover after being hunted to near extinction for their fur throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries.

By the early 1900s, there were just 50 sea otters left on the California coast, Long said. Now a protected species, otters have rebounded — and there are about 3,000 of them on the coast.

“Although that is certainly in the direction that we’d like to see this population go,” Long said, “the last several years, the population has stabilized at about 3,000.”

That means the remaining otter population is still at risk — for various reasons.

The chief issue, though, is the impacts of human activity on the ocean and its inhabitants, according to the Aquarium of the Pacific’s website.

“Disease-causing pathogens that originate on land can reach the marine environment through storm sewers, sewage outflow, surface run-off and polluted waterways,” the aquarium’s website says. “Once in the marine environment, sea otters can ingest these pathogens and harmful toxins by way of their food.”

Oil spills are particularly harmful to sea otters — because the oil coats their dense fur and destroys their ability to waterproof and insulate themselves.

“The otter ends up freezing to death or being poisoned from ingesting the oil while trying to clean its fur,” the aquarium’s website says.“California’s sea otters are concentrated in a relatively small area, and a major oil spill off the central coast could wipe out the entire population.”

Overfishing — which leads to food scarcity for otters — alongside climate change and subsequent ocean acidification also pose serious threats to the health and well-being of the California otters that are left.

But there’s hope for sea otters.

The Long Beach and Monterey Bay aquariums are working to rehabilitate — and release back into the wild — as many orphaned otters as they can.

“We’re hoping that with our efforts to try and put more pups back into the wild,” Long said, “we’re going to be able to continue to recover this species off of our coastline.”

More information about how to help sea otters and support the surrogacy program is available on the Aquarium of the Pacific’s website, pacific.to/saveseaotters.