A two-week-old sea otter pup found stranded on a beach near Seldovia on the Kenai Peninsula in mid-January is gaining weight and strength, and under 24-hour care at the Alaska SeaLife Center in Seward.
The pup, now seven weeks old, gets constant care and attention, from grooming his coat to encouraging him to play in the pool, according to the center’s wildlife response curator, Jane Belovarac. Currently the otter, who has not been named, is fed both formula and solid food every three hours.
ASLC officials said an individual spotted the pup on the beach and called the center’s 24-hour stranding hotline, 1-888-774-SEAL After permission was granted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Smokey Bay Air donated the flight to get the pup to Homer, where volunteers from the center transported him to Seward.
Caretakers are working on getting him to practice proper grooming skills like rolling in the water and swimming with purpose. They report that he is quite an athletic otter, manipulating toys in the water as he swims.
The ASLC, a not-for-profit entity, is the only permitted marine mammal rehabilitation center in Alaska. Over 80 percent of its funding comes from charitable donations from individual donors and organizations like Marathon Petroleum Corp., SeaWorld & Busch Gardens Conservation Fund, BP Alaska, ConocoPhillips Alaska, PetZoo, GCI, HDR Marine and Graphic Works.
