Mitik, an adorable baby walrus rescued this summer from Barrow, Alaska, and then relocated to the New York Aquarium on Coney Island in the fall, faces an uncertain future after superstorm Sandy left his New York home without power.
The Associate Press Reports that flooding left the New York Aquarium's entire 14-acre facility underwater at one point during the storm's surge, causing severe flooding and power loss. According to Brooklyn Daily, the aquarium is still without power with no immediate relief in sight. If power cannot be restored soon, the aquatic animals, including Mitik, will need to be evacuated.
Assistant director with the World Conservation Society, which runs the aquarium, Nicole Robinson-Etienne, told the Daily that there is only a small window of time to get things back up and running.
"If this cannot be accomplished in this critical period, we will temporarily relocate the collection to other … aquariums in the region," she said. But Robinson-Etienne added that many of the aquarium's animals are doing well at the moment, thanks to a temporary life-support system.
Will baby Mitik make survive this latest trauma? Will he have to come back home to Alaska? Only time will tell what fate has in store for the world's cutest mustachioed mammal.