LA aquarium weans Ollie the orphan otter
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A California aquarium has taken in an orphaned sea otter, but is having to nurture her until she is strong enough to live with her bigger and rougher cousins at the marine center.
Ollie, the four-month-old sea otter, weighed only 10 pounds (4.5 kilos) when she was rescued off Santa Cruz aged only a few weeks, and had still not learnt any survival skills because her mother was missing.
After being cared for temporarily at the Sea Otter Research and Conservation Center in northern California, she was offered a home at the Aquarium of the Pacific on Long Beach, south of Los Angeles.
She now lives in a separate tank at the back of the non-profit aquarium, and will likely be there until later this year when she joins the center's other sea otters, Brooke and Charlie, said senior mammal expert Michele Sousa.
"Because male otters can be very, very aggressive, we actually have to wait until Ollie gets large enough that she can actually hold her own against the big boys," she said.
Ollie still clings to Sousa's rubber galloshes like a nervous toddler. After initially being bottle fed, she has now moved on to a diet of choice sea food including shrimps, which cost about 25,000 dollars a year.