VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) - The last of the famous hand-holding sea otters at the
Vancouver Aquarium has died of cancer. Milo was 12 years old.
Dr Martin Hulena says Milo was receiving special chemotherapy treatments and was the first otter to be diagnosed with this in the world. "He looked great last week. About two days ago, he started to decline."
"We had to look at him yesterday; his blood work was not looking very good at all. He was declining rapidly through the day. We tried to support him the best we could," he explains.
Milo and his partner Nyac became a hit five years ago when someone shot footage of them holding hands while floating on their backs in their habitat and posted it online. Nyac died a year later.
"People, I think, are going to be very, very sad. But it is a natural course of events, unfortunately," adds Hulena.
Milo was born at an aquarium in Portugal in 1999 and came to Vancouver a year later.