Dr. Chris J. Law

That's usually unique to captivity.

I don't think I've ever heard any situation where a wild female would take in another stray pup.

And usually if the stray pup is alone, it's not going to even survive for that long because it's basically defenseless and hopeless.

It can't even go catch its own food by itself.

So it'll just die.

Yeah.

So yeah, that's why, you know, like the O'Hanrae Bear Aquarium really relies on stranding networks or like volunteers or people just, you know, observing or seeing a wild otter bites or like a little pup that somebody will call it in and they'll send out a team to bring it in if they can't locate their mom or something like that.

That's a great question.

I don't know why they are so cute, but how it's because their skulls are very flat faces.

So if you look at a basically a newborn CR skull, it doesn't have that snout pronounced snout yet.

So it's very like a puppy dog face or like even like a newborn baby's face.

And which I guess, in our brains is hardwired to, you know, want to like, take it and hold it and protect it and all that.

But in terms of why they might be like that in the wild, I have no idea what kind of selective advantage that is.

Maybe other animals think it's cute, or maybe other otter individuals might have some kind of selective pressure on it, but I have no idea.

Yeah.

Yep.

Sounds great.

Yeah.

So otters don't eat the kelp.

They just live in it.