MONTEREY – Rosa, the Monterey Bay Aquarium's oldest sea otter, died after age-related health issues were regarded as affecting her quality of life. Rosa was 24 years old.
Rosa was not only the oldest otter within the aquarium, but additionally certainly one of the longest-living specimens of her species. In the wild, female sea otters live for about 15 to twenty years, in response to the aquarium.
According to the aquarium, in the times leading as much as the choice to euthanize her, staff noticed a change in her behavior and a deterioration in her condition.
“She died peacefully surrounded by her caregivers,” Monterey Bay Aquarium veterinarian Dr. Ri Chang said in a press release.
Rosa was found stranded on a beach in Santa Cruz County when she was about 4 weeks old and was added to the aquarium's sea otter program in September 1999. She was released back into the wild in April 2000, but on account of reports of her climbing on kayaks and interacting with divers, authorities concluded that she had an excessive amount of interest in humans. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided that she ought to be faraway from the wild because she posed a danger to herself and to humans.
Rosa, named after a personality in John Steinbeck's “Tortilla Flat,” was permanently placed on the Monterey Bay Aquarium in 2002 and played a central role within the sea otter surrogacy program there, in response to the aquarium. She was one of the crucial prolific surrogates in this system's history, raising 15 pups.
Rosa also acted as an envoy for her species, participating in numerous research studies and contributing to the scientific knowledge of southern sea otters while living within the wild. Both scientists on the Monterey Bay Aquarium and researchers on the University of California were capable of collect data on Rosa's caloric intake, core body temperature and behavior.
During her time on the aquarium, Rosa has built a following online, watching her via Sea Otter Cam livestreams and, lately, participating in virtual birthday parties raising funds for the aquarium.
After learning of Rosa's death, people took to the web to specific their condolences and share the impact she had on them. The aquarium's Instagram post sharing the news received over a thousand comments, while other community members spoke about her death on the aquarium's Discord server and on X (formerly referred to as Twitter) and shared pictures they’d drawn for her upcoming birthday.
Melanie Oerter, curator of marine mammals, said Rosa is one of the crucial playful otters on the aquarium and may often be seen fiddling with the younger otters, even at 24 years old. Although Rosa is frequently patient with staff, she may be stubborn at times and just isn’t easily persuaded to do something she doesn't wish to do, the aquarium said.
“Often she would just look at us or swim away. I think she was the one who really trained us all these years. I definitely learned a lot working with such an incredible otter,” Oerter said on the aquarium's Instagram. “It was a privilege and to say we will miss her is an understatement.”
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