An orphaned baby North American river otter, which was found emaciated and severely dehydrated, is now thriving at its new home at the High Desert Museum, and once he is ready, will be released into the museum’s otter exhibit.

The new otter was found a week before Memorial Day weekend and is believed to be about 8 weeks old. It was found on a golf course near Sunriver, the museum said Thursday.

The otter was initially brought to the museum for temporary care while wildlife professionals searched for his mother. His mother could not be found, and this week, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife determined the baby otter should remain at the museum where he will live with the museum’s other two resident otters, Brook and Pitch.

“We don’t know exactly what happened to this otter, although we do know that without his parents he wouldn’t have survived in the wild,” said Jon Nelson, museum curator of wildlife. “This was a unique situation where this otter pup does appear to have been legitimately orphaned.”

This is the time of year when people sometimes find young animals who appear to be alone in the wild but their parents are actually nearby, Nelson said.

“The best thing to do is leave the animal there and contact the local ODFW office to report it,” he said.

When the baby otter arrived at the museum, he weighed 2.4 pounds. Be he gained weight fast and has been getting healthier by the day. He now weighs 4.6 pounds, the museum said.

“I would say his personality is still emerging,” Nelson said. “We are just now starting to work with him and getting to know him. He is starting to get a little playful. For the most part he eats, he sleeps and he poops.”

Nelson said the new otter just started getting healthier in the past 10 days, and that museum staff had to teach him to feed from a bottle. In the wild, he explained, baby otters at this point in life would be nursing from their mothers, but the museum’s orphaned otter was fed with a special otter formula.

The new otter is already starting to wean, Nelson said, and is even starting to slowly include small amounts of fish into his diet.

However, at this point, the otter is still too young to be introduced to Brook and Pitch, who are both male otters, Nelson said. The process of getting him strong enough to move into the exhibit could take several months, he said. “He needs to be as big as the other boys to go in there and to be able to roughhouse with them and be able to handle all of that,” Nelson said.

At this point, the new otter must learn how to swim, and Nelson said he is starting to get used to the water.

“He has had some opportunities to get into shallow water, and he sticks his head in the water and blows bubbles,” Nelson said. “Learning to hold his breath… Just like any baby he has got a lot to learn, and we are going to do our best to provide him with all the experience he needs to be successful.”