Animal Blog

Animal Blog

Otter Pup Back in the MBA Spotlight

Kit, the abandoned southern sea otter pup that was found in Morro Bay, is back on display at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Now, two-years-old and fully grown, Kit has been returned to the otter exhibit with the hopes she'll “learn some manners" and build a relationship with the aquarium staff members who care for her.

Back in January of 2010, a five-week-old otter pup was heard repeatedly crying out, appearing to have been separated from its mother. A call was made to the California Department of Fish and Game, who then contacted Biologist Mike Harris, of the Center for RNA Molecular Biology, who attempted to introduce the pup to various nearby groups of otters. The effort proved unsuccessful, and because otter pups require constant parent contact in order to survive, she was quickly relocated to MBA which houses the only southern sea otter rehabilitation center in the state.

“The southern sea otter is a threatened species. There are fewer than 3,000 alive in the wild today, and they're found only along a short stretch of the California coast,” according to MBA's Otter U program. The abandoned otter pup is the youngest to have survived in the wild after being separated from its mother, and required 24 hour care from aquarium faculty in order to simulate the necessary nurturing bond between pup and parent.

After a few weeks the pup was put on display, given the name Kit—after a character from the Steinbeck novel, The Wayward Bus—and paired with a surrogate mother. Later, the pair was removed from display and enrolled in Otter U, where Kit was taught to catch and eat live prey.

According to aquarium staff member, Chris DeAngelo, Kit is by far the most active and high energy of the resident otters. “She’s always doing something somewhere. She’s a real handful, and you have to be ready to work at her speed.”

Now that Kit is back on exhibit, she’ll learn the other side of MBA’s otter program; she’ll learn certain behaviors, manners, and how to interact with her human caretakers. Kit is being groomed to become a surrogate mother to other lost or abandoned otters like herself, though she won’t embark upon that journey for another year or so.