MIAMI — The Miami Seaquarium introduced its two newborn sea lion pups to the public on Tuesday.
Eight-year-old Wahoo gave birth to a male pup at the oceanarium on June 13. Four days later, 16-year-old Sushi gave birth to a female pup.
"We do have one first time mother so that's really unique for us," said Amy Woodfell, Assistant Supervisor of Animal Training at the Miami Seaquarium. "Sushi is the other mom and she's an experienced mom so she's had several pups with us."
The pups will nurse from their mothers for several years and gain up to two pounds per week.
The Seaquarium launched a naming contest this week for the newborn sea lions where you can win a seal swim experience.
"We always love to get our guests involved, encourage them to come down, see them, look at their individual personalities, they're just like kids," said Woodfell. "A lot of them are very rambunctious, some of them are a little bit more you know naive and smaller so it's really exciting for everyone to come in, evaluate them on their own time and really think what name best suits them."
The choices for the female pup are: Wasabi, Ginger, Won Ton and Sashimi.
The choices for the male pup are: Thunder, Flash, Champ and Justify.
You can vote at www.miamiseaquarium.com/namethepups until September 14.
The Seaquarium will randomly choose one person to win two seal swim experience vouchers good anytime during the 2018 Miami Seaquarium season. The full sweepstakes rules can be found on the Seaquarium website.
