September 19, 2007

VANCOUVER AQUARIUM CELEBRATES

SEA OTTER AWARENESS WEEK

Vancouver, BC: The Vancouver Aquarium kicked off international Sea Otter Awareness Week today, which takes place from September 22-30 and will be celebrated at the Aquarium with special crafts, activities and family programs, in addition to regularly scheduled otter feeds.

The Vancouver Aquarium has four sea otters. Nyac, 18, is one of the last survivors of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, while three-year-old Tanu and six-year old Elfin were orphaned as young pups off the coast of Alaska and hand raised here at the Aquarium. Eight-year-old Milo is here on loan from the Lisbon Oceanarium.

Sea Otter Awareness Week began four years ago to educate the public about sea otters, their history and the conservation issues they are facing. Sea otters numbered in the hundreds of thousands two and a half centuries ago, but over-hunting in the 18th century nearly led to their extinction. Today, there are between 65,000 and 90,000 sea otters worldwide. Once extinct in British Columbia, 89 sea otters were reintroduced here between 1969 and 1972 and since then that number has grown substantially, now totalling 3,200. 

In April 2007, the sea otter population in B.C. was downlisted from ‘threatened’ to ‘a species of special concern’. Sea otters are considered a ‘keystone’ species, a term that refers to their function within an ecosystem. They eat shellfish, preventing the destruction of kelp beds, which provide habitat for a number of fish species.

On Monday, September 24, the Aquarium will be celebrating the 19th birthday of sea otter Nyac, who became famous last spring after a video of her 'holding hands' with otter Milo made a huge splash on Youtube. Over eight million people have viewed the video to date and Nyac also has her very own fan club on Facebook.

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For further information, please contact:

Brenda Jones

Manager, Public Relations

publicrelations@vanaqua.org