Southern Sea Otters

The Aquarium of the Pacific is participating in Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Sea Otter Surrogacy program. At a special surrogacy area built behind the scenes, the Aquarium’s female southern sea otters serve as surrogate mothers to teach rescued sea otter pups the skills needed to survive in the ocean. Once the pups learn the proper skills, they return to the Monterey Bay Aquarium for potential release. The Aquarium of the Pacific’s surrogacy pools accommodates on average four rescued sea otter pups each year.

Southern sea otters (Enhydra lutris nereis) are endangered marine mammals in the weasel family. They are found along the North American west coast from Half Moon Bay just south of San Francisco to Point Conception in Santa Barbara County, a fraction of their historic range. Sea otters play the important role of ecosystem engineer for their ocean habitats. Sea otters were hunted to near extinction in the early 1900s. Now a protected species, California’s sea otters have grown from a group of 50 in 1938 to several thousand. Despite this progress, they continue to face serious risks, including oil spills, pollution, and climate change.

The program at the Monterey Bay Aquarium has rescued, rehabilitated, and released stranded sea otter pups since the 1980s. This program has an established record of success releasing otters back to the wild and has been proven to help in the recovery of wild populations.

A lead grant from the California’s State Coastal Conservancy Sea Otter Recovery Grant Program supported the construction of the sea otter surrogacy facility.