California aquarium apologizes for tweets about sea otter

MONTEREY, Calif. — California’s Monterey Bay Aquarium has apologized after some people perceived a tweet about a sea otter as body-shaming.

The aquarium on Tuesday tweeted a picture of Abby, an otter who helps train orphaned otters how to survive in the wild. The tweet featured social media words and phrases such as “thick,” ”c h o n k” and “OH LAWD SHE COMIN” which are often used to describe someone who is overweight.

People took offense.

The aquarium on Wednesday tweeted a multipart apology that it called a “learning moment.” It apologized and said it was unaware of the connotations associated with some of the memes.

Hey everyone. It has come to our attention that some of the references in this tweet are problematic and insensitive. We're posting here in the thread so that people who have engaged with this tweet will join us in our learning moment. 1/4

— Monterey Bay Aquarium (@MontereyAq) December 19, 2018

The aquarium says “Abby is looking fit.”