One cold foggy morning at the Marine Mammal Center, the California Coast received a call from their public hotline. In Morro Bay, witnesses heard distressed cries coming from an otter pup.

The otter pup had been separated from its mother, which is very dangerous for a pup´s development.

¨That pup is really relying on everything it learns from the mother to be able to survive in the ocean,” said Shayla Zink, a worker at the Morro Bay center.

Mother sea otters typically care for their pups for up to nine months, carrying their baby on their chest as they swim, and nursing them until they´re old enough to fend for themselves. When sea otters are still young, their fur is not yet suitable for individual swimming, making their mothers crucial to their early development. Sea otters get their adult coats around six months; however, the otter pup that they found was approximately only two weeks old.

The Marro Bay center and their local Harbor Patrol were ready to do everything they could to reunite the pup with its mother. They ended up naming the otter ¨Caterpillar,¨ and put it in a safe container where it wouldn´t overheat. Originally, their plan was to sail around the Bay as Caterpillar cried, however, they were afraid it would get tired and stop crying. They decided to record the Caterpillar´s cries and they played them across the sea on a Bluetooth speaker for the mother to hear.

It was a very tedious process for the crew, and they were out at sea for hours, replaying screeching sounds every minute.

¨I think we all went home and it was still playing over and over in our brains,¨ Zink said.

At last, a female sea otter popped her head out of the water and started swimming towards their boat. Sea otters are usually sleeping, hunting, and grooming their furry coats, never showing any interest in humans on boats.

Zink went from one end of the boat to the other, and the sea otter followed her each time. The crew was certain that the pup had belonged to the female otter, and Zink lowered the pup into the water, and the mother began running her paws against Caterpillar´s fur.

¨It´s really nice to hear that people are doing what they can to save these animals… It´s never easy, but these people seem to find a way, which is great,” said Andrew Diaz, an eSTEM student at ERHS.