Meet Shedd sea otter Yaku

At 80 pounds and 4 feet, Yaku is the big guy in Otter Cove. He’s also the only guy, an arrangement he seems to like.

Yaku was born at the Seattle Aquarium in 2000 and came to Shedd a year later. Like all of Shedd’s sea otters – and marine mammals – he was enrolled in our award-winning training program from Day One.

Sea otter pups rank way up there on the cuteness scale, and the adults display their playful natures as they somersault in the water, inch along on land, or tug at trainers’ boots during sessions. But as they reach maturity, these deceptively large animals with sharp canines and crushing molars become unpredictable. In fact, before Shedd demonstrated otherwise, most aquarium professionals dismissed these frisky, feisty marine mammals as untrainable.

Meet Shedd sea otter Kachemak

Shedd’s success in raising the four Exxon Valdez oil spill pups impressed the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service so much that a year after the spill, in 1990, the service called to see if the aquarium could take a month-old pup found stranded on a beach in Homer, Alaska. Wildlife officials speculated that the 6-pound otter had been separated from her mother during a storm.

Because the infant needed constant care, she was allowed to ride in the cockpit of the cargo jet, along with Shedd’s otter specialist and veterinarian, on the flight from Anchorage to Chicago. The otter was named Kachemak after the bay where she was found.

New penguin chicks on exhibit at Shedd

Shedd’s Magellanic chicks have joined the eight adult Magellanics and 12 rockhoppers in the penguin habitat. Here’s a recap of their development plus an update on their progress, courtesy of trainer and penguin lead Lana Vanagasem, since we last reported on them June 10.

Our five penguin chicks made the trip from the San Francisco Zoo to Shedd as eggs in a portable incubator, securely strapped into their own business-class seat on a commercial flight. Lana was beside them the whole trip. The day after the eggs arrived, May 15, the first chick pipped its eggshell, beginning the laborious task of hatching. The chicks were fully hatched out between May 16 and 24, after an average of 40 days of incubation. The white spot on the end of each bird’s beak is an “egg tooth,” a sharp bump that helps puncture the egg membranes and shell, then drops off within a few weeks. 

Beluga pregnancy update

 

A newly renovated Oceanarium isn’t all that Shedd’s marine mammal trainers have been excited about lately; several months ago, blood tests and ultrasound exams – routine veterinary procedures performed on all our marine mammals – revealed that two beluga whales are pregnant!

Kelly Schaaf, a senior trainer in the marine mammals department, is one of the staff members caring for the expectant females. “In a lot of ways,” Kelly said, “the routine stays the same. We still do training sessions and let them interact with other whales.” The frequency of routine examinations has increased, however, as staff members try to determine how far along each pregnancy is (belugas gestate between 14 and 16 months!) and continue to monitor the health of the mothers. When physical cues indicate that labor is near for each mom, she will be moved to a separate habitat, and veterinarians will watch and wait. Wait is the key word. Kelly notes, “The actual birthing process can take several hours.”

Meet Shedd's sea otters

During Sea Otter Awareness Week, Sept. 27 through Oct. 3, we’ll introduce you to Shedd’s five sea otters and tell you a little about how we care for and train these high-energy animals. To get a jump on things, someone you otter know is Kenai, the 20-year-old grand dame of the group and an Exxon Valdez oil spill survivor.

For several months after the March 24, 1989 disaster, hundreds of distressed otters were found along the inshore waters and beaches of the Gulf of Alaska as 11 million gallons of oil spread from the site of the spill in Prince William Sound southwest toward the Kenai Peninsula and beyond. So many oiled otters were showing up downcurrent that a second rescue center (the first was in Valdez) was set up in Seward.