A California aquarium has taken in an orphaned sea
otter, but is having to nurture her until she is strong enough to
live with her bigger and rougher cousins at the marine center.
Ollie, the four-month-old sea otter, weighed only 10 pounds (4.5
kilos) when she was rescued off Santa Cruz aged only a few weeks,
and had still not learnt any survival skills because her mother was
missing.
After being cared for temporarily at the Sea Otter Research and
Conservation Center in northern California, she was offered a home
at the Aquarium of the Pacific on Long Beach, south of Los
Angeles.
She now lives in a separate tank at the back of the non-profit
aquarium, and will likely be there until later this year when she
joins the center's other sea otters, Brooke and Charlie, said
senior mammal expert Michele Sousa.
"Because male otters can be very, very aggressive, we actually
have to wait until Ollie gets large enough that she can actually
hold her own against the big boys," she said.
Ollie still clings to Sousa's rubber galloshes like a nervous
toddler. After initially being bottle fed, she has now moved on to
a diet of choice sea food including shrimps, which cost about
25,000 dollars a year.