A five-week-old orphaned southern sea otter pup is making a new home at Shedd Aquarium in Chicago.
A five-week-old orphaned southern sea otter pup is making a new home at Shedd Aquarium in Chicago.
The Illinois-based aquarium, through a collaborative partnership with Monterey Bay Aquarium, recently welcomed the southern sea otter pup (Enhydra lutris nereis) from the United States Fish and Wildlife. Weighing in at just under 6 pounds and measuring 22.6 inches long, the female sea otter pup arrived at Shedd on Oct. 28 from Monterey Bay Aquarium in California, where the pup spent the first four weeks of its life being stabilized.
The pup has been doing well since her arrival, receiving continual care behind the scenes of Shedd’s Abbott Oceanarium, the aquarium said Wednesday.
It is the second pup from the threatened southern sea otter population to reside at Shedd. Currently referred to as “Pup 681,” Shedd’s animal care and veterinarian teams are providing the continual, round-the-clock care she needs to thrive.
“Pup 681’s situation was urgent. As an organization dedicated to marine mammal care and conservation, we were perfectly positioned to ensure that this little pup had a home, providing the long-term care needed to survive,” said Tim Binder, vice president of Animal Collections for Shedd. “This rescued animal provides an opportunity for us to learn more about the biological and behavioral attributes of this threatened species and to encourage people to preserve and protect them in the wild.”
Estimated to be only one week old and weighing in at just over 2 pounds, the female pup was found on Sept. 30 on Coastways Beach in California, between the San Mateo and Santa Cruz county line. A person on an evening walk heard the newborn otter’s cry and quickly notified The Marine Mammal Center. The Marine Mammal Center operates Ke Kai Ola Marine Mammal Hospital at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority in Kailua-Kona.
The center’s staff contacted Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Sea Otter Program and scientists determined the pup could not be retrieved that evening because of the remote location and darkness. The next morning, Oct. 1, the pup was still in the same location and determined to have been orphaned. Scientists from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Sea Otter Program responded immediately to recover the pup and transport her to Monterey Bay Aquarium.
“On arrival at Monterey Bay Aquarium, 681 weighed 1.0 kilogram, which is tiny for a newborn sea otter, and she had been separated from mom for at least 16 hours. This meant it was critical that we begin to get calories into her as quickly as possible,” said Karl Mayer, Animal Care Coordinator for the Sea Otter Program.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Sea Otter Program has been studying and helping recover the threatened southern sea otter since 1984. The program works with other aquariums, such as Shedd, and wildlife rescue facilities to respond to every sea otter that comes ashore in distress along the California coast. Over the past 25 years, nearly 700 sea otters—adults and pups—have come through this program, which rescues, treats and releases injured otters; raises and releases stranded pups through a surrogacy program; provides care for sea otters that can’t return to the wild; and conducts scientific research.
Stranded sea otter pups require extensive round-the-clock care and there are only a handful of facilities in the United States with the available space, staff and experience to provide the appropriate care. Shedd officials and animal care staff quickly accepted Monterey Bay Aquarium’s call to provide the stranded pup with a permanent home.
To ensure the pup receives everything that she needs, a rotating schedule of six to eight animal care experts provide care 24 hours a day. During this intensive nurturing period, she will remain behind the scenes in the Regenstein Sea Otter Nursery as she develops certain behaviors, such as grooming, foraging, and feeding, as well as regulating her own body temperature by getting in and out of the water.
As she acclimates to her new surroundings, Pup 681 reaches new milestones every day, including taking formula from a bottle, eating solid foods such as shrimp and clams and even climbing upon white towels when she gets wet to help her groom and regulate her body temperature.
Annual surveys from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) indicate that the southern sea otter population index reached 2,944 in 2014 – a slight growth from 2,939 in 2013. The International Union for Conservation of Nature classifies sea otters as threatened on the Red List, referencing the slow recovery of southern sea otters in California. Southern sea otters were listed as “threatened” under the U.S. Endangered Species Act in 1977. The population of southern sea otters has failed to grow consistently despite decades of federal and state protection.