Zoo Insider - Otter Visit and Enrichment

Hi guys, Jamie here, one of our animal care supervisors at John Ball Zoo, and I wanted to spend a little time with you guys with our North American River otters, Slide and Chumani. So you can see they're very excited about something, and that something would be lunchtime. Otters have a very high metabolism, so they're always super interested in getting food, which makes them so fun to work with and awesome for animal training. We also have to keep them very busy though, since they're so fast paced. So in a little bit I'll show you guys an enrichment device that we like to use different varieties of for our otters, just to keep them busy and having to work and forage for their food. But I thought I'd do a little intro first if you guys don't know our two. We have one male and one female. Our male is Slide. He is eight, and he's the one I'm filming right now. You can kind of see by his nose, it's very white. He doesn't have any kind of marking under that nose. He's also a tiny bit bigger than Chumani, but that's a little difficult to tell. And then our female Chumani, she's 13. We'll see if she gives us a good look, but she has a very dark marking under her nose. Chumani! There we go. You guys can kind of see that marking. It's almost like a little mustache under her nose. Lots of otters have identification marks like that. They can vary, but they can change with age too. But these two have had no marking in that nice little mustache for quite a while. So that's how we usually tell them apart visually. They have different very varied personalities as well, but that takes a little bit longer to get to know them. So Chumani came to us from Connecticut's Beardley Zoo when she was just about one. But then she's been here for the rest of her life, so about 12 years now. And Slide came to us before he was even one. We got to experience his first fun in the snow. He came from Detroit, and with that first snow he definitely lived up to his name sliding all around. They almost look like little snakes in the snow. They don't use their limbs and they just kind of roll and paddle around in the snow. You guys can see as they're swimming, and maybe later when they get their food too, because I'm hoping it will sink a bit, that otters have some great adaptations for finding their food and actually being able to hunt things down. So they have that big otter-like tail that they swish back and forth like a big propeller. They also have webbed feet, so in between those toes is nice webbed skin. And those are like built-in flippers, so it helps them get a lot of speed that way too. They have really smooth torpedo-shaped kind of bodies that helps them glide through the water. They also have a nicotinic membrane, so that's like a almost like a third eyelid that they can close. It's clear when they're underwater, so it's like having built-in swim goggles. So another bonus for these guys. And then you can see they have some very cute long whiskers, and these help them to be able to sense things underwater to better help catch. So lots of cool adaptations. North American River otters could be even found if you have a pond or a bigger stream in your backyard. They're on the Grand River, they've been spotted there. Anywhere that there's really good clean water that they can have the prey that they need to find to survive, you'll find otters. So they're a very good indicator of a nice clean watershed. And their populations did decline back in more like the 60s and 70s due to a lot of hunting for their fur, and then people kind of getting rid of habitat and not paying attention to that. But they are a nice true success story. People paying more attention to watersheds and keeping them cleanly, reintroducing the species back in out west, they've done great. So there are plenty of river otters out there now, but they still do monitor populations. All right, I think we've made them wait long enough. They've been, they've been pretty patient for otters. But I wanted to show you guys, one of our enrichment devices that we use are called puzzle feeders. So they come in a variety of different shapes, different size holes, different colors, everything. We can put some of their normal food diet, which they get fish every day for lunch. The fish can change, but today it's smelt. And then that way they have to work to get them out. Now looking at the smelt and looking at the size of those holes, it's not going to be nearly as challenging as I had hoped for. So today I thought maybe after we put the smelt in, we can kind of stuff some leaves on top to hopefully better block those holes. And I always like to kind of freestyle scatter some fish too so that they have to wander around and it's not all concentrated in one spot. So we'll do a little bit of both today. That way hopefully you guys get a chance to see them swimming underwater in the pool too. They're pretty fun. All right, hopefully these leaves will be my blockers. The keeper that cleans tomorrow will have to forgive my leaves in the pool for this enrichment. I think they're gonna work pretty good at holding them in, at least somewhat better. Otters are great at figuring how to get things out of these though, especially when food is involved. So probably still won't take too long. Perfect. So first we'll scatter these little extra fish in. See if we can give you guys a chance to watch them underwater. They're pretty charismatic. You can see they're definitely ready. They're too fast. I think they already got most of them. This is the fun battle we get to do all the time. It's trying to keep them busy because they find everything so quickly. They're great little hunters. A lot of people think they're so cute and they would want one as a pet. No, not good pets. They, because they eat a lot, they also do poop a lot. So lots to clean up. They look cute and friendly, but they are natural predators. They are carnivores. They have very sharp teeth and are very quick. So definitely not good pet candidates. All right, we'll see what they think about these. I was hoping everybody would get one. So they tend to have different styles of approaching their puzzle feeders. Usually Slide is just so excited about everything that he just gets going right away. He'll stay in the water a lot of times and just work on things. I think the water can kind of help him move items around in the tube as well. Jumanee, on the other hand, tends to go for the approach of bringing everything out of water. I think some of this is so she can better guard things from Slide and she makes sure that she's getting her part, but I think she's also kind of figured out her own way of dealing with things on land. Looks like he got some, but our leaves are doing the trick for now. Otters are also good hunters because they can hold their breath for a pretty long time. At least several minutes on a normal dive to be able to find things. I think a record might have been reported of seven or eight minutes, but that is definitely not the average dive. But you can definitely see they're very persistent. Once they set their mind to something, they'll achieve it. Slide is fun to train because he is so eager all the time to do things. It just takes him maybe a little longer to to stop for a second and think about what we're asking him. But once he gets the hang of something, he is a pro. Jumanee, on the other hand, knows very quickly what you're asking of her, but she is definitely a little more suspicious of why you want her to do something. So different personalities, but it makes them very fun. All right, well hopefully you guys enjoyed today's otter talk and enrichment. Do your part to clean up waterways so species like this can be around you in your own backyard in your own town. And we really look forward to seeing you at the zoo soon.