2005-11-16

Otter Chaos

I think we're all in agreement. Otters are terminally cute (warning: streaming WMV). National Geographic knows this and has set up an Otter Cam in the home of two people lucky enough to raise the little scamps for a living. Whole research projects are underway to study the fiesty buggers.

Some otters are endangered but adoring humans have come to their rescue.

It has come to this humans attention that otters thrive even in the cold waters off Scotland's shores. The people of Durham County in Britain have banded together to save their version of mollusk eating Lutra lutra. This kind of otter used to live as far east as Japan but Asiasan culture has developed an ability to hunt things to exinction without a second thought. Hunting them is now banned world-wide but bans don't stop poachers. World War II did have quite an impact, though.

But the Federal Government, known for a lack of cuteness and more than occasional global gaffs, is wrapping their heads around a new idea. Otters are pretty darn smart! And they have no respect for the beleagured shellfish industry. No respect at all. Awww.

The giant otters of Peru enjoy eating snakes and oddly no one seems to mind that. The whisker-faced ones have been known to take on python of medium size or smaller.

This is a creature we all must strive to preserve before it disappeares in the blink of a flipper.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

HE HE HE my favorite thing in the world.

Jen Jordan said...

The last little guy seems to be taking great joy in the fact that the government just now figured how smart he is... or, maybe someone just told joke about when the mollusk and the prawn walk into a bar...

Ellen Clair Lamb said...

I feel the need to share the world's greatest anthem to the glory of the otter, "The Otter Song," by Tim Quirk, as performed (and recorded) by Too Much Joy. Check it out: http://www.sayhername.com/music/geac/otter.rm

Clair