Estimated read time: Less than a minute
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
MONTEREY, Calif. (AP) — 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.
The aquarium says "Abby is looking fit."
Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.





