Sea otters eat, sleep, mate and have their pups in the water. Occasionally, females come ashore to rest after mating, and any otter may beach itself if it's ill or injured. Remember, if you see an otter on the shore, leave it alone and ask other people not to disturb it. How to report a stranded otter. Sea otters live in loose-knit groups called rafts.
Rafts typically consist of two or more resting otters.
Rafts often sleep side by side, wrapped up in strands of kelp, so that they don't drift far from each other. Males and females usually live in separate groups. Mature males protect large territories, encompassing the territories of several females. On the outskirts of the range are rafts of bachelor males, too young or too old to hold their own territories. A sea otter's normal body temperature is about 100 F, while the ocean is a chilly 35 to 60 F. Sea otters carefully groom their fur to trap a layer of insulating air bubbles between their warm skin and the icy water.