Otters have teeth perfectly adapted for crushing their favourite food — fish, shellfish and crabs! While crabs form as much as 80 per cent of the otter’s diet, they will also eat other water creatures such as fish and snails as well as small land animals such as lizards, frogs and mice. Otters will use their sensitive paws, claws and stiff whiskers to forage for food. They need to eat often and will hunt throughout the day — up to five hours!
Because most otters live in and around cold water, they have to have to keep warm — and the best way they do that is by keeping their metabolism up. This means eating lots of food! The sea otter has to eat around 20 per cent of its body weight everyday and the European otter around 15 per cent. That’s a lot of fish.
If one of your favourite foods includes shellfish, you’re going to need something to break them open. When sea otters dive to the bottom of the ocean to find their food, they also bring up small rocks to smash the shellfish open. Dinner is served.
Otters are well known for their playfulness and sense of curiosity. Playing together helps keep family bonds strong and teaches the pups important skills such as how to find food. Otters have many sounds to communicate with, including different sounds for greeting, playing, courting and even a special call for raising the alarm! The otter’s great sense of smell also allows them to communicate using scent marks.
The Sea Otter lives in the cold coastal waters of the Pacific and spends most of its time out in the water. The Sea Otter has no blubber so keeps the cold at bay with the thickets fur in the world — around 150,000 hairs per square centimetre!
Perhaps because of their playful nature, otters have become part of myths and stories from cultures from all around the world. On a more practical level, small-clawed otters are traditionally trained in parts of India, China and South-east Asia to help fishermen: catching fish and returning them to the boat in exchange for a reward. Unfortunately, the relationship between otters and humans has not always been so mutual — otters have been hunted for their fur for hundreds of years.
Sadly, 12 out of 13 of the Otter species worldwide are under threat or endangered. Their numbers are declining due to reasons including hunting otters for the illegal fur trade, habitat destruction and reduction in available prey. They are also affected by pollution of waterways, including pesticide run-off from farmland. Water pollution and overfishing reduce the availability of prey species, such as crabs, that the otters eat.
Otters love water. So, they are found on the shores of rivers, lochs, waterways and coastal areas. The population is booming across Scotland after being pushed close to extinction back in mid 1900s. Relative to the UK, Scotland has a high proportion of the population, particularly on the western coast and islands. They are a protected species.
Whilst numbers are growing, they can still be difficult to spot. They spend most of their time in the water and sleep and breed in holts, which are normally caves, burrows or holes. Otters are not specifically nocturnal, but they are typically more active at night.
Otters need to eat at least 1kg of food per day and get most of their food from the water. Their fantastic swimming skills, waterproof fur, rudder-like tail and webbed feet make them brilliant aquatic hunters, and otters typically feed on fish, frogs and crustaceans. They also prey on birds and mammals on waterfronts.
Whilst otters are protected, they can get injured by snares, which may be set for pest control but indiscriminately harm lots of wildlife and domestic animals. The Scottish SPCA supports a complete ban on the use of snares.
Otters under a year old would not survive in the wild, so any youngsters need support. If a baby otter’s mother is killed or scared off, it will not be able to fend for itself. Many of the otters we rescue are babies, and come to our National Wildlife Rescue Centre where they stay until they are of age to make it on their own.
If you come across an otter cub that’s calling for its mother, observe it from a distance for a while if the cub is in a safe place. If the mother does not return within an hour or two or before dark, the cub needs to come in to our care. At that point, you should call our animal helpline on 03000 999 999.
We’ve successfully hand-reared and released lots of cubs back in to the wild over the years.
As baby otters are dependent on their parents for a year, we need to look after them for months. We try to time a release with when they would naturally leave their parents to find their own home. Any release is meticulously planned and takes in to account landowner permission, the population of other otters in the area and suitability for the species to have a long and happy life.
There is no cuter sight than an otter floating around on its back with its little paws folded on its belly. They look like aquatic teddy bears from a distance, but if you get up close, you soon realize not everything about the otter is quite so adorable.
Despite that, the demand for pet otters is soaring, and it’s not doing the otter any favors. Asian small-clawed otters are highly sought after both as pets and for the increasingly popular otter cafes.
Even some of those who own pet otters advise others against it, and we’re going to find out why. Not only that, but we’re going to explore the otter’s natural habitat and its origins.
You’d expect otters and beavers to be closely related; after all, they’re both furry creatures that spend large portions of their day in the water. Weirdly enough, however, they don’t even belong to the same family.
Otters For SaleIn fact, you could say they’re otterly different! While both are mammals, otters are carnivorous and more closely related to the weasel.
Would you believe there are 13 different otter species, which are divided into two distinct groups – river otters and sea otters? The lutra genus contains all the world’s river otters, while sea otters belong to the Enhydra genus.
Wild otters all have a few things in common, including their basic physiology and love of water. With their dense fur coats and webbed feet, they are perfectly adapted to an aquatic environment and spend most of their time in the water.
Even with that thick fur, otters have had to make physiological adaptations so they can keep warm. Sea otters live in the cold waters of the North Atlantic and rely on their fast metabolisms to generate enough heat to stay warm.
Another characteristic shared by all otter species is that they are one of the few animals to have inbuilt pockets! Under their forearms, otters have flaps of skin into which they can stash food and useful tools like rocks.
They can’t fit a cell phone in there yet, but who knows where evolution’s headed?
Despite its adorable appearance, the otter can be surprisingly merciless and violent if the situation demands it. Studies have discovered a nasty side to the sea otter, with scientists observing males harassing and sexually interacting with young harbor seals.
Despite its adorable appearance, the otter can be surprisingly merciless and violent if the situation demands it. Studies have discovered a nasty side to the sea otter, with scientists observing males harassing and sexually interacting with young harbor seals.
Even when reproducing with their own kind, male sea otters are so violent that the trauma can prove fatal for their partners.
River otters aren’t much better and will defend their territories aggressively if provoked. There are even reports of them attacking humans, crocodiles, and alligators!
Of course, there is an otter side to the story (excuse the pun!), and that’s the critical role otters play in their aquatic ecosystems. As apex predators, river otters control the populations of their prey species.
Without sea otters, sea urchins would proliferate, destroying the kelp forests that absorb and sequester so much of the world’s carbon.
Is the Lifespan of the Pet Otter the Same as that of Wild Animals?
Wild animals face numerous threats, from predators to disease, which is why domesticated animals often survive longer.
This is no different for the otter, and pet otters can survive for up to 20 years, while those in the wild have a life expectancy of between 10 to 15 years.
That’s hardly surprising when you consider that mortality for river otter pups sits at over 50% in their second year and that significant numbers of female sea otters die from the injuries the males inflict during mating.
That doesn’t mean finding yourself a pet otter is the best way of protecting the species, and I’ll explain why a little later on.