In the central California coast of Morro Bay, the Marine Mammal Center received an emergency call on their hotline about distressing cries, sounding very much like a baby’s screams.
An investigation revealed the screeches had been coming from a two-week-old otter pup that had been separated from its mother. Unfortunately, the pup would have been too young to have survived on its own, so the hunt began to help find the baby otter’s mom.
Mother otters care for their young up to nine months; often the pups are carried on the mom’s chest floating through the water.
The Marine Mammal Center and the Morro Bay Harbor Patrol sprung into action. The baby otter, nicknamed Caterpillar, was placed in a safe enclosure where it would not overheat. Her heartbreaking cries calling for her mother were then recorded.
The plan was to ride around the area, blasting the baby’s cries through a speaker system in order to alert the mother to the location of her baby. A recording was used instead of holding the pup so it wouldn’t get exhausted. And if the baby stopped screaming, how would the mother know where to look?
The crew searched for nearly two hours, playing the screeching cry nonstop, and eventually a female otter popped her head up and followed the boat. The mom was persistent, and every time the recording blasted the pup’s cry, the mom would come closer to the boat.
When the crew felt confident this was really the baby’s mother, they lowered the pup into the water. Video showed the mother swimming to her baby while the little one floated helplessly on its back. The heartwarming moments affected the crew as the mother embraced her baby and ran her tiny hands through the baby’s thick coat as if treasuring the moment her baby had been returned to her.
Otters do remain a threatened species from industrial-scale hunting for their fur.
(Photos via the Marine Mammal Center screenshots)
Check out the heartwarming video:
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