Water Babies

Every ambitious zoo longs to exhibit some interesting animal that no other zoo can boast. Last week the National Zoological Park at Washington earned this distinction; it became the proud owner of three impish-looking, mustachioed young sea otters--Hortense, Aggie and Peter.

About four feet long, they were caught in the bleak Aleutian Islands, and the U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service rushed them to Washington in a Stratocruiser. At the airport (temperature 90DEG), they seemed resentful and whistled shrilly, but when they got to the zoo, they splashed with content in the iced water of a small, air-conditioned pool.

Zoo Director William M. Mann hopes that they will thrive, but he is not too confident. Sea otters have never been exhibited before, partly because of their rarity and partly because the odd conditions of their natural habitat are hard to simulate. They live in the great beds of kelp that fringe the shores of the North Pacific, where they lead an easy and highly specialized life, floating much of the time on their backs with their forearms folded over their chests. Whenever they feel hungry, all they need do is roll over and dive to the bottom for sea urchins. They bring the sea urchins to the surface, lay them out on their chests and eat them at leisure, just as if they were sitting at a well-stocked dining-room table.

Sea otters' bodies are buoyant, and they can float at ease with a cargo of edibles.

Baby sea otters ride on their mothers' chests. No natural enemies attack them except killer whales, which can easily be eluded in the waving fronds of the kelp.

The chill North Pacific water does not bother otters either, for they wear the finest fur that any animal possesses.

Their fur was their undoing. At one time it sold for as high as $2,500 a pelt, and hunters slaughtered the sea otters.

For years they were so rare that many naturalists gave them up as extinct, but a few survived in the remote Aleutians.

Now, rigidly protected, they are making a comeback.

Director Mann is promising nothing.

He suggests that lovers of sea otters come to see his new charges promptly before something happens to them. So far they seem to be thriving, however. Hortense and Peter, though young, are taking an interest in each other. Washingtonians may yet see a baby otter circling round the pool on its mother's furry chest.

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