September 12, 2025
Have you ever wondered what it’s like to care for a newborn sea otter pup? How about two?
In honour of Sea Otter Awareness Week, we’re taking a deep dive into summer 2024 to share the ins and outs of raising Tofino and Luna, two tiny otter pups who stole our hearts (and kept us on our toes).
Summer is the busiest time of year at the rescue centre. With more than 100 harbour seal pups coming through our doors, there’s hardly room in our minds for anything else. Our seasonal staff join us in June, our volunteer shifts open wide, and we prepare for whatever comes our way. But what usually comes our way is seal pups, not sea otters. And certainly not two.
Enter Tofino.
Rescued on June 17th, 2024, at just three weeks old, Tofino the sea otter pup turned the centre upside down. Within hours, a crib was assembled, bins of otter supplies were hauled from the depths of the shed, and the freezer was filled with clams. Our days stretched from 7 a.m.–10 p.m. into round-the-clock care, as our team worked to meet her needs while still caring for the growing number of seal pups already on site.
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She didn’t shriek at the ear-splitting pitch Joey the sea otter pup did when he was rescued, she napped on schedule, and she never left a bottle unfinished. But that doesn’t mean she didn’t require an incredible amount of effort and manpower, because she absolutely did. At her age, sea otter pups need bottle feeds every two hours, followed by time in the water to swim, urinate, and defecate. We monitored each swim session carefully to make sure she didn’t get too cold. Once out, she’d be whisked to the grooming table, where staff and volunteers spent countless hours drying and combing her dense pup coat to keep the soft underlayer of down dry.
Sea otters have the thickest coat of any mammal with up to one million hairs per square inch, and very little blubber. That means if a pup isn’t dried properly, hypothermia, matting, and other issues can set in quickly. Of course, just when you’d finally finish drying Tofino, she’d wake from her nap ready for another bottle, followed by a trip to the pool, and then straight back to the grooming table to start all over again.
In the middle of a hot summer, our otter team was bundled up in hoodies and jackets, while the seal care team baked outside.
By mid-July, we had finally settled into a rhythm. Staff rotated between sea otter and seal pup care, volunteers had mastered the art of blending otter formula, and our brand-new washer and dryer were running non-stop.
Then came the call. A sea otter pup alone. The pup was in Campbell River, and I breathed a sigh of relief because we don’t get sea otters in that area, and that call happened to be about a river otter pup. I hung up and joked with a colleague about how my heart had stopped, and we both laughed, saying, “Can you imagine two sea otter pups at once?”
About an hour later, the phone rang again. Another sea otter pup call. Confidently, I asked if they were calling from Campbell River. But this time, I had to sit down when the caller told me she was phoning from Vargas Island, on the west coast of Vancouver Island, right in the heart of sea otter territory. And then she added that she was one of our longtime volunteers who had helped raise Hardy, another sea otter pup. At that moment, I knew there was no mistaking this case for a river otter.
Photos soon came through of a heartbreaking little sea otter pup, covered in sand and tangled in shoreline seaweed. After a call to Fisheries and Oceans Canada who immediately granted permission for a rescue, we launched into planning. This pup needed urgent care if she was going to survive, and we weren’t confident we’d reach her in time. The ferry and drive would have taken four to five hours, so we chartered a floatplane. Within an hour, three of us were in the air.
At the dock, our volunteer met us with the pup in her arms. We began administering fluids and offering her food right there in the harbour, attempting to stabilize her just enough for the trip back. Once we were comfortable with her vitals, we reboarded the plane for Vancouver, where the rescue centre had already kicked into overdrive. Extra volunteers had been called in, more supplies dug out, and the hospital nursery split into two sides so the new pup could be quarantined from Tofino.
...she still tried to bite us with her barely erupted teeth on the ride back. At the time we laughed, not realizing it was foreshadowing of the sassy sea otter she would become.
She was soon named Luna, and she couldn’t have been more different from Tofino. Where Tofino was calm and cooperative, Luna seemed to screech just for the thrill of it. She fought her bottle every chance she got resulting in her blood glucose dropping low. No matter what we did, her temperature was rarely stable: just as we cooled her from a high temperature, she’d become too cold, and we’d scramble to warm her back up. Balance didn’t seem to exist with Luna. We’d get a couple of good days, thinking she had finally turned a corner, only to have her refuse food the next day and send us spiralling all over again.
During this time, each pup had a dedicated volunteer while a single staff member oversaw their care. Tofino had graduated to an outdoor enclosure with a deeper pool, where she was learning to dive. Her small pup toys were sanitized and handed down to Luna, though not before Tofino figured out that they fit perfectly in the water intake pipe of her pool, which quickly earned her a set of larger, more “plumbing-friendly” toys.
It was a moment none of us will forget, and one we all wish we’d worn earplugs for. Their introduction was filled with squeals, cries, and even a few nervous protests from Tofino, but they eventually settled into play. Watching them bond was exactly what we had hoped for, and it melted our hearts.
Because of their age at rescue, both Tofino and Luna were deemed non-releasable by Fisheries and Oceans Canada. In late summer, they were transferred to their forever home at the Vancouver Aquarium.
These two pups taught us so much. Despite the sleepless nights, the ups and downs, and the endless laundry, we will always remember the summer of 2024 with fondness and love. Hand-raising and rehabilitating a sea otter pup is an extraordinary privilege, and being part of their recovery was nothing short of an honour.
If so, there are many ways to support sea otter conservation. From symbolically adopting a patient to volunteering or donating, every contribution helps us continue this work. If you’re local, be sure to visit their forever home at the Vancouver Aquarium, where you can see them thriving and help celebrate the incredible journey that began with their rescue.
As a Registered Veterinary Technician with the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Mammal Rescue Society since 2018, Kendra Luckow has dedicated her career to the rescue and rehabilitation of marine mammals. She has had the privilege of raising sea otter pups Joey, Quatse, Tofino, and Luna, and is passionate about sharing the stories of the animals that come through the Rescue Centre.
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