Orphaned otters in Virginia rescued by wildlife rehabilitator

Jane Harper, The Virginian-Pilot on May 1, 2025

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NORFOLK, Va. — Workers reporting to a Virginia Beach military base office building last week found a charming surprise when they walked up to the entrance — two baby otters huddled together in a corner by the door.

They were cute, but not particularly friendly. Whenever someone tried to approach, they screamed, as otters often do when they’re frightened, said Cindy Lakin, a volunteer wildlife rehabilitator in Newport News who specializes in otter care and took them in.

“They (the workers) tossed food to them for a couple of days,” Lakin said. “They thought their mother would eventually come and get them but that never happened.”

It turns out the otter pups’ mother had been killed by a car on Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story a few days before. A wildlife conservationist on base notified Tidewater Wildlife Rescue in Virginia Beach about the pups, and a team went to pick them up, Lakin said. She already had a 4-week-old otter with pneumonia that had been rescued in Fairfax County earlier that week and a year-old otter that had been turned over to her a few months ago.

“They (the pups found at the base) were super dehydrated when they got here,” she said. “And very frightened.”

The pair — a boy and a girl — are about 6 weeks old. Lakin immediately began administering fluids to them when they arrived. She’s bottle feeding them a specially made formula several times a day for now, and will move them on to fish and eggs in a couple of weeks. When they’re about three months old, she’ll begin teaching them to swim.

Baby otters are typically taught to swim by their mothers, Lakin said, who tosses them into the water, puts them on her back, and shows them how to come up for air. Lakin will begin the process by putting them in a large bowl filled with water, then will move them up to kiddie pools and then a larger water-filled pen in an enclosure in her back yard. The enclosure was built by volunteers from Evelyn’s Wildlife Refuge — the group Lakin is affiliated with — and designed especially for otters. Children’s plastic playground equipment, hammocks and pools of various sizes fill the space.

Lakin’s three-acre property has several other enclosures used to hold all kinds of creatures in need, including deer, reptiles, possums, groundhogs, skunks, squirrels, foxes, turtles, and snakes. Lakin’s full-time job is as a software engineer. Working from home allows her to take breaks throughout the day to feed and care for the animals, she said. She also gets help from her parents and other volunteers.

Last year, she had seven otter pups to care for, which was an expensive proposition. The fish alone cost about $3,000 a month, she said. All that is paid for with donations — and out of Lakin’s and other volunteers own pockets.

Lakin got into animal rehabilitation about 17 years ago. She started with dogs and cats, then moved on to wildlife. She learned about otters from her mentor, Suzanne McBride of Virginia Beach, who cared for the water creatures for 30 years. When McBride died several years ago, Lakin became the go-to otter rehabilitator for the entire state.

The one-year-old otter she has now, a female named Poppy, came to Lakin when she was about seven months old. The previous caretaker never taught Poppy to swim, or how to catch fish, so Lakin is trying to catch Poppy up before releasing her.

On Wednesday, as she watched the 6-week-old pups happily play and care for the 4-week-old in a large wooden pen in her garage, Lakin smiled and talked to them as they looked up and chirped back at her. They’ll be ready to be released next spring, she said.

The otters are typically set free next to bodies of water in less populated parts of the state. A den box is left behind for them, and food is provided for their first week. Last year, she watched as six otters she released slid down a creek bed on the side of a hill and into the water.

“It’s bittersweet,” Lakin said. “You put so much time and effort into them, and really begin to care for them. But when you watch them having so much fun playing and swimming out there, it’s so rewarding. Seeing them so happy, you know you did the right thing.”