An orphaned sea otter pup and a young adult female have found each other and a new home in Southern California.
Neither will live in the wild again. But aquarium officials in Long Beach have a future in mind for the pair.
Rey and the pup, Sunny, are making their public debut Wednesday at the Aquarium of the Pacific, where they are on view in the Sea Otter Habitat inside the Northern Pacific Gallery.
Both otters were deemed non-releasable to the wild by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service because they had not participated in the aquarium’s sea otter surrogacy program, but officials envision a role for them in that very program. They see Rey and Sunny as future stand-in moms.
Stranded baby sea otters need a mother figure if they’re ever going to be able to return to the ocean.
The Aquarium of the Pacific is part of Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Sea Otter Surrogacy program, where the aquarium’s adult female sea otters act as adoptive mothers to teach rescued pups the skills needed to survive in the wild, according to the aquarium.
“Our hope is that once they reach the age of maturity, both otters will become surrogate mothers, so that more orphaned pups have the chance to return to the ocean,” said Megan Smylie, the aquarium’s sea otter program manager.
When a pup strands on the Central California coast, federal and state wildlife officials respond to assess whether it is truly orphaned, said Brett Long, the Long Beach aquarium’s vice president of animal care. The otter will then go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium for up to eight weeks of critical care. Once stable, the pup may be transferred to the Aquarium of the Pacific, where it is paired with an adult female surrogate for about five months.
The surrogate teaches the pup to groom, forage, and behave like a wild otter, Long said.
Rey and Sunny were paired together to help Rey train to be a surrogate mother and young Sunny to pick up more skills.
“Rey has been showing really good maternal instincts,” Long said. Being raised by another sea otter rather than a human gives Sunny — like other orphans — the best chance of learning essential skills, he added. According to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, a study the institution conducted over 15 years showed that sea otter pups raised in surrogacy survived as well as pups raised in the wild.
Sea otter mentorship is at the forefront of a formal partnership between the Aquarium of the Pacific and Monterey Bay Aquarium, which has been rehabilitating sea otters since the 1980s, according to Long. In 2020, the two institutions agreed to expand Monterey Bay’s sea otter surrogacy program southward. The aquarium prepared for the program and received its first releasable pup in January 2024, Long said. Since then, 10 pups have gone through the program at the Aquarium of the Pacific.
Rey is about 2½ years old. She was found stranded as a days-old pup in July 2023 and spent time with another facility before arriving at the Aquarium of the Pacific in March 2026, according to the aquarium. Sunny was found stranded on Asilomar State Beach in Monterey County at about 2½ weeks old in February 2026. The Monterey Bay Aquarium stabilized her before she was transferred to Long Beach, the aquarium said.
After separation from the surrogate, the pup spends additional time socializing with other juveniles before a potential release along the California coastline north of Santa Barbara, according to Long.
Long emphasized the importance of the program in returning sea otters to their natural habitat as they are a threatened species. Perils they face in the wild include maritime traffic and oil spills. Since sea otters rely on their dense fur coasts to stay warm, oil contamination from spills can be damaging to their coat and overall ability to survive in frigid water temperatures, he said.
Sea otters are a keystone species in kelp forest ecosystems, eating sea urchins that would otherwise consume the kelp, according to the aquarium. A healthy otter population helps keep those underwater forests intact.
“Every sea otter back in the ocean can make a difference,” Smylie said. “It is our hope that the rescued sea otters who go through surrogacy here will play a role in continuing to expand that population.”
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