Blinded by a shotgun blast, Walter the sea otter arrives at the Vancouver Aquarium

Walter came to us October 18th. He was rescued in Tofino. He was in very, very poor condition. He was acting very abnormally. He was assessed by us in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and it was decided that he was an animal that did need treatment. So he was rescued by our staff from the Marine Mammal Rescue Centre and brought to Vancouver Aquarium's Marine Mammal Rescue Centre and we found out quite quickly that, well of course he was in very poor condition, but that he'd been shot and shot with a shotgun. He had quite a number of pellets scattered throughout his body, mostly around his head and shoulder, but it had also affected his hind flipper. The resulting injuries caused blindness, so he is permanently blind, caused a very serious degree of dental injury and we had a dental specialist come in and perform a root canal to save one tooth as well as perform a number of extractions to help him with that. He also required several procedures to remove two of his toes on his hind flipper and to help his hind flipper to heal. He's been an incredible challenge. Again, he just came in in very, very, poor condition, very critical and really mostly due to our staff and volunteers at Marine Mammal Rescue Centre who were on him 24 hours a day for weeks and weeks. He has come back and I'd say impressively so. I mean today he's doing great. The process of the integration and the introduction to the other animals is one we really can't put a timeline on because it's really up to Walter how well he does, how well he interacts with us, what things he learns, ensuring that we don't have to step in to do anything that may impact an introduction when it occurs. We also know the more likely two females that we have, Tanu and Katmai, we know their different personalities, their energy levels and so getting to know all those animals and determine which animal would be the best one to introduce him to is going to be an important factor. Because he's blind, he's an animal that is not likely to do very well in the wild at all so that's why he's been transferred to the Vancouver Aquarium today which is exciting for us. This is a great place for him, we've got great staff, a great facility, we've got other sea otters, we've got a long history of dealing with sea otters that have come from rehabilitation programs and Walter in particular is a great story. He's an animal that has suffered a lot because of the actions of humans. He's also an animal that's been given a second chance because of humans so it's kind of a neat thing to see him come back from being such a critical case and in such poor shape to an animal that's happy and healthy and able to forage here, at least with the help of humans anyway and I hope he's going to go on and live a very happy life for the rest of his days.