A representative for the center said Biologist Mike Harris and veterinarian Dr. Heather Harris set out in a Morro Bay Harbor Patrol boat to find the mother.
"Mike and Heather took the pup by boat through Morro Bay, testing responses from multiple adult females by presenting the pup in front of other sea otters. The otters looked up but wouldn't approach the boat," the representative told ABC News. "They knew they had found the mother when she responded immediately to the pup's vocalizations and swam over to the boat to retrieve her pup."
The video shows a biologist gently toss the otter pup into the water near its mother.
"The pup toss was performed by a senior sea otter biologist with over 25 years of experience," the center said in a Facebook comment. "He knew the pup would be just fine with a gentle toss. Sea otter pups physically can't sink... even if you held one underwater it would just going BOING back to the surface... so he knew it would be OK in the water."
"He needed to put distance between the boat and the mother-pup pair so the mom would come get the pup. She wasn't going to get the pup if it was too close to, or on, the boat," the comment reads.
The mother, which was found more than half a mile away from where the baby was located, then surfaces underneath the pup and grabs it in her arms before swimming away.
"This is basically the happiest vid you've seen in a while," the center said in the Facebook post.
The center said officials considered the operation a "huge success" considering that "sea otter reunions are very rare."
