Well here's something you don't see everyday—a wild animal leaving the ocean to take up residence at an aquarium. But that's exactly what happened Sunday when a sea otter appeared in the tide pool at Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey Bay, Calif.
Staff started wondering if she was okay, as it's rare for healthy otters to spend so much time in their pool. The mystery was solved early the next day, when they spotted a newborn pup on the otter's chest! "We’re talking umbilical-cord-still-attached, whoa-is-that-yep-that’s-the-placenta new-born otter pup," aquarium staff wrote on their site.
Sea otters were hunted close to extinction not too long ago, the aquarium said. "Maybe 50 were left in all of California by the early 1800’s. But now, thanks to legislative protection and a change of heart toward these furriest of sea creatures, the otter population has rebounded to steady levels in the Monterey Bay, and with 3,000 total in central California."
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