MONTEREY – After a one-day on-line ballot with nearly 30,000 members, the Monterey Bay Aquarium has introduced it’s naming its latest resident otter Opal.
The aquarium is planning for Opal to make her public debut this summer time. The ocean otter exhibit employees have been working with Opal behind the scenes to arrange her to hitch the opposite resident otters on exhibit.
The identify Opal was one in every of three choices ballot members had to select from. The aquarium described Opal as a colourful identify for her playful persona and mentioned the identify is “associated with the iridescent gemstone and there are many ocean-related opalescence references like the opalescent nudibranch and the insides of shells” in a press launch.
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She arrived on the aquarium after being discovered stranded close to San Luis Obispo in February 2024 as a three-week-old dependent pup and was deemed unreleasable by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Opal might assist orphaned pups sooner or later as a part of the Sea Otter Surrogacy Program, which the Herald took a more in-depth take a look at as a part of the fortieth anniversary collection. As part of this system, Opal would act as an adoptive mom or companion for stranded younger pups, educating them abilities corresponding to grooming and foraging to outlive within the wild.
