Today we're going to take you around, show you some of our patients and answer some of your questions.

So with me I have Dr. Marty Helena and he is going to take us through to our newest patient, to our newest sea otter patient, Tofino and we'll answer some of your questions.

Hey everybody, good morning and thanks for joining us.

Yeah, let's have a look at the start of the show.

Follow me.

He's not in the bathtub.

Going into our, well what usually is our hospital treatment area, surgery, but has now been converted into the domain of, where is Herb Royal Highness Tofino, who's under 24-hour care still.

Looks like she just came out of the pool.

Emily here, our assistant manager here at the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Mammal Rescue Centre is doing the fluff and puff.

Fluff and puff.

And doing the fluff and pop.

Super important for these guys, our sea otters have a perfect hair coat and we have our own team of professional hair coat developers here and Emily is one of the leaders of that.

So Tofino just came out of the pool as I said.

That hair coat needs to be perfect as I said.

So dry, groomed, combed.

You can see she's starting to help us, which is awesome, right?

So she's starting to work that hair coat on her own.

She's starting to blow air into the hair coat, puff it up.

That's what this fan is for.

Normally these guys have essentially a dry coat or a dry suit on all the time, right?

So the hair is so close together that water actually doesn't touch their skin.

That's how they insulate.

No blubber like seals.

That hair coat is everything to them.

So it needs to be perfect.

So yeah, do we have any questions from out there?

Yeah, looks like, how old do we think Tofino is?

Well, we think she's about six weeks of age.

Normally these guys would spend almost six months with their mom.

Again, super intensive.

She's eating a lot, probably 25 to 35% of her body weight in formula every day.

She's gaining a lot of weight.

Yeah, six weeks right now.

It's going to be a process.

Marty, can you tell us how sea otter pups keep their coats dry in the wild?

Yeah, so mom is such a great mom.

So in the wild, sea otter pups rely 100% on mom to keep their coat perfect.

So they don't have quite the dexterity and the flexibility.

They have this really, really puffy kind of sea otter pup coat as well.

So it's really mom.

Mom's doing a lot of that grooming for them.

Blowing air under that hair coat, fluffing it up, and keeping it perfect.

At what age will she get a more adult coat?

I think most often we see them start getting that hair coat at about two months of age.

By three, it's pretty much an adult dark coat that you might be more familiar with.

Perfect.

Someone would like to know if they would get an infection of any type if water does get to their skin.

Excuse me.

Not so much of an infection if it's just water.

But what happens is they'll lose insulation very quickly.

It's been estimated even if they lose 5% of their hair coat, they will not be able to thermoregulate in cold ocean water.

Someone would like to know is she as soft as she looks or do otters have more of a horse fur?

She actually feels like a sandpaper spiky.

Her hands are bleeding.

Very weird.

No, she is probably softer than you actually think.

These guys have just about the densest hair coat out of any species.

And it is fluffy and soft and awesome.

I hope she likes that.

That's the spot.

What is she currently eating and how often?

She is eating for the most part a specialized sea otter formula that is based on a commercial carnivore replacer, so something that might be fed to other types of carnivores that might be orphans like wolves or raccoons, that kind of thing.

But we do modify that quite a bit, essentially adding a lot more oil to it and some essential nutrients as well, vitamins, minerals.

And that's pretty much what it is.

However, she is starting to wean on us to a certain extent, so she is eating some clam as well just as a supplement and she loves it.

Her teeth are coming out.

There's a couple questions in regards to her swimming and her diving.

Is she doing a better job at that?

I know last time she was still kind of leaning to one side and getting a little bit waterlogged, so how's that going?

That is progressing.

So she's a puppy and she's not able to really do everything as yet, but she's trying hard and certainly she's starting to get that sea otter flip, I call it, where they kind of dive and then put their hind flippers up and really push down.

She's starting to get it, not awesome yet.

Next question is here, how much does she sleep right now?

Oh boy, a lot. 11 hours a day?

Yeah, at least 11 hours a day.

So she's on about a three, three and a half hour cycle right now and out of that, so getting fed about every three, three and a half hours, and I would say out of that she's sleeping almost half the time, at least a third of the time.

I think we've got quite a few Joey fans on here, so a lot of people are wondering what her chances of release are or would she potentially go to the aquarium or an aquarium?

Well, right now she's Canada's Animal, so she's under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans and we work under license from them.

We're in charge of her medical and husbandry care, but any determination on releasability is made by them.

And historically, unfortunately, because of all this intensive kind of care that the otter needs, because of all the things that she'd normally learn from her mom, like where to forage, how to forage, how to use tools, what kind of food to eat and how to escape predators, we can't teach that.

So historically, dependent pups of this age have not been considered super great release candidates.

However, there are some super great homes for these guys, and obviously the Vancouver Aquarium is one of those.

We currently have eight sea otters in our facility.

All of them have started out life as an orphan pup somewhere in the Pacific.

A few questions about the same thing.

What does she smell like?

She doesn't have an orange.

No.

Her body doesn't.

No.

And actually, she doesn't smell hardly of anything.

And the reason for that, or a large reason for that, is these guys are a mustelid, so that means that they're related to things like weasels and mink and river otters and skunks even.

So species that we actually associate with real heavy smells, because they have these must plants, but sea otters are the only members of that group of animals that doesn't have a scent plant.

It makes no sense to have that, so you don't want to get any kind of oil on their fur, but really rely on that.

There's the perfect oil we can with that.

And there's no need to mark in the ocean, because it'll just go away.

Thank you.

Does she have a favorite toy right now?

I think mostly my fingers seem to be a favorite to chew on.

But, you know, she loves her ice.

Ice treats, and these guys have been freezing toys inside ice blocks, and I think right now that seems to be the thing I really go for.

Can you tell us a little bit about her teeth and how many that she has right now?

Well, how many?

That's a good question.

She probably has one, two, three, four, five.

Let's find out.

All of her teeth are coming in.

They're all in there.

They're still a bit small, but they're certainly coming out.

Yeah.

I think so.

I think she hates everyone equally.

No, she's pretty awesome.

And as long as you're providing everything that she demands, you're her favorite at that moment.

She's very fickle.

Sorry, guys.

We were just turning the fan off so you can hear us all a little bit better.

Hopefully that works.

Let us know if it doesn't.

How long does it take to fully dry her?

Well, it depends on how good you are.

For Emily, it takes about three hours.

I just like to draw it out.

It's about 20 minutes to fully dry her, maybe?

Yeah, I mean, sometimes they work upwards of an hour, though, if she falls asleep on the table.

They'll just keep working on the trouble spots.

So here, down at the base of her tail, kind of in between her flips, her armpits.

But everything else dries really quickly.

How deep are her pockets?

Does she have pockets yet?

She does.

They're not super well-developed yet, but you want to show them where her pockets are?

She says, no, they're private.

And they're private and they're ticklish.

But they're starting to form, so you can kind of see.

Another question.

Joey, he meeped and made a lot of sounds when he was here.

How is her meeping in comparison?

Probably not as vocal as Joey overall.

She's definitely a bit quieter, but she does have some really adorable noises that she makes.

Maybe now with the fan off, we can pick up on them a little bit more.

Little grunts and squeaks.

Definitely lets us know what she wants.

Is she biting?

Does she try to chew on stuff?

Yeah.

I think, again, mostly me, for some reason.

But, yeah, she's just like any other mammal that's getting teeth.

She wants to chew on things.

It's how she explores her world and how she develops that ability to crunch through things.

So, yeah, no, she's biting on a lot of stuff.

How many members of staff, and I'll add volunteers, are taking care of her right now?

And how many hours in rotation?

Oh, boy.

So, it's about a three, three and a half hour cycle.

Our staff are here eight hour shifts, usually.

And we do have a dedicated staff person just for the sea otter.

And they are assisted by at least two volunteers.

So, there are three people around the clock with this otter.

We have a couple repeat questions.

I think some people are just joining.

Can you let us know again how old we think she is?

Yeah, we think she's probably about six weeks old.

Just over six weeks.

She's been with us since the 18th of June.

Well, 19th of June, technically.

And another one.

Oh, this is a good one.

Will the baby teeth fall out?

No.

These are her permanent teeth coming in.

Amazing.

Another repeat one.

How old are they when they start developing their adult fur?

So, it starts around two months of age where that really fluffy pup coat starts to turn into that darker sea otter coat that most people are a little bit more familiar with.

Probably by three months, they're fully dark and have that adult coat.

No, we can't have that.

Sorry.

And she's floating a little bit better than she was the last time we watched her.

Is that correct?

She's a pretty good floater.

I'm not sure what.

Maybe someone caught her just in an awkward water-logged moment.

But she floats pretty great.

Yeah, she's a bit of a cork.

That's perfect.

Is she grooming herself?

She certainly is.

And you can actually see it right now.

So, she's working it.

And she definitely goes for the problem areas.

Looks like she wants to bite Emily.

Everybody does.

So, I get it.

But, yeah, she's starting to do a little bit on her own.

She's not awesome at it.

Does she like towels like Joey did?

We know he loved his towels.

That's a good question, Emily.

I don't know.

Every once in a while, she notices your grooming towel.

Not like Joey.

She's not like a wiggler yet like Joey was either.

As a baby, is there a special way to clean her or does she require any cleaning?

Well, the saltwater baths are the primary way to clean her.

So, sea otters are very well adapted to keeping that coat really clean.

So, for example, she won't go to the bathroom unless she's in the water.