Meet Brooklyn’s Cutest New Resident
NY Daily News: An adorable, orphaned walrus named Mitik will arrive at the New York Aquarium in Coney Island on Thursday.
The 15-week-old calf has spent the last three months getting nursed back to health by The Alaska SeaLife Center, which rescued the pup along with a second orphaned walrus, Pakak, off the coast of Barrow, Alaska, in July, the New York Times reported.
Mitik’s health has improved dramatically since he was found suffering from bladder problems and unable to take a bottle. He’s now putting on a pound a day.
Martha Hiatt, the aquarium’s behavioral husbandry supervisor, has already spent some quality time with the pup and says he’ll be a spirited addition to the aquarium, one of the handful of institutions in the U.S. that exhibit walruses.
“If Mit is resting with his head on my lap, sucking my fingers, looking sweetly into my eyes, and Pak comes anywhere near us, he pops up, yells at Pak and tries to head-butt him,” she told the Times. “Then he’ll turn to me and be all cuddly again.”
Mitik has two walrus buddies in Coney Island already waiting for him: 30-year-old Nuka and 17-year-old Kulu.
He’ll join the pair in the aquarium’s exhibit next spring, and Hiatt says he’s sure to fit in.
“We say he is small but scrappy – the perfect New Yorker,” she said.
Read more at The New York Times: A Fat, Mustachioed Orphan Finds a Home
