Our southern sea otters at Georgia Aquarium are furry, energetic, and (of course) adorable. They spend most of their days swimming, playing, and eating, but most importantly they inspire our guests to care for our world’s waters.
Sea Otter Awareness Week (celebrated annually in the last week of September) serves as an important reminder that this keystone species is endangered and in need of our help. Once hunted for their pelts, sea otters were on the brink of extinction. While their numbers have improved, they are still facing many challenges including entanglement in fishing nets, oil spills, and predation by great white sharks.
Georgia Aquarium has helped to care for stranded sea otters numerous times since opening in 2005. In 2019, the Aquarium took in two sea otter pups after they were found stranded near the California coastline and deemed non-releasable by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. If there wasn’t an available permanent home for these pups, they would have been euthanized.
