Orphaned Otter Pup Finds A Surrogate At The Aquarium Of The Pacific

An orphaned sea otter is getting another shot at life in the wild with help from its surrogate mother, Millie, at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach.

The 4-and-a-half-month-old female, known as pup 968, is the aquarium’s first releasable surrogate-raised otter. The hope is that she’ll be successfully released back into the waters of central California — after she’s learned a few critical survival skills from Millie.

Megan Smylie, the aquarium’s sea otter program manager, told LAist that pup 968 has been making progress, but she still has a lot of learning to do.

“She certainly has the skills, but I don't know that she is ready to keep trying on her own without asking for mom's help,” Smylie said. “We'll get there.”

Where did the pup come from?

Pup 968 was found stranded on a beach just north of Santa Cruz at the end of January.

Even though her size and development were a little stunted, Smylie said rescuers could tell she was around 8 weeks old because of her teeth patterns.

The pup was picked up by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and taken to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, where she was triaged and stabilized. The aquariums are partners in a sea otter surrogacy program, but the Long Beach location had the right availability, so pup 968 made a trip down south the first week of February.

“Once we felt like she was comfortable after about a day, we introduced her to Millie,” Smylie said.

Millie, left, and the orphaned otter pup she's raising as the Aquarium of the Pacific's first surrogate.

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Andrew Reitsma

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Aquarium of the Pacific

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How is she doing now?

Millie is an 8-year-old adult female otter who Smylie said has a strong maternal instinct.

“She is this very big, very powerful, dominant force normally,” she said. “Then she gets around these tiny little pups and she is just doing everything that she can to kind of cue off of them and give what they're giving.”

But the baby wasn’t so sure of her at first. The pup didn’t have any interest in a maternal relationship, but Smylie said Millie just wouldn’t give up.

“Once she realized that Millie was there to help, they actually are quite inseparable now, and it's pretty amazing,” Smylie said.

The match is about much more than just company — the pup needs to learn how to forage for food, how to manipulate live prey, and how to groom herself properly.

Smylie said when sea otters are born, they’re not capable of diving underwater, and that can be quite difficult for pups to learn. And their fur is the best defense against the frigid Pacific Ocean waters, so they need to be taught how to maintain it.

“The mom, the surrogate mom or the biological mom, are the ones that teach those types of behaviors,” she said.

Right now, the pup is getting proficient in prey manipulation, but Smylie said she’s not all the way there just yet, which isn’t surprising for her age.

Why you won’t be able to see the pup

When the pup is about 6 months old, she’ll be weaned from Millie and socialized with other juvenile sea otters to prepare for her release back into the ocean.

“That is where people cannot help the sea otters,” Smylie said. “We don't socialize with otters the same way sea otters socialize with otters.”

That’s also why the pup won’t be named and is kept away from the public in the aquarium’s Molina Animal Care Center. Getting too comfortable with people would be a safety concern once she’s returned to the wild, so she needs to stay accustomed to her own otter kind.

They’re hoping pup 968 will be ready for that transition in the next five to six weeks, and if everything goes according to plan, she will be eligible for release by late summer and into the fall in the same general area she was found.