The National Zoo Welcomes a New Family of Otters

Asian smoke cloud otters are considered the most social otter species because they live in large families. Unlike other otter species, they'll live in groups of up to 15 to 20 in the wild. The exhibit on Asia Trail was created for our large family group. We provide a variety of enrichment to our Asian smoke cloud otters here. We give them different scents. We give them different substrates, meaning hay or woodwool or mulch. They love different things. Of course, they have a lot of that in their yard naturally. Their favorite thing is rocks, but we also give them toys where we hide their food inside of it. We give them live food like fish so that way they have to go and hunt around for it. Pretty much anything you bring to them is the most amazing cool thing for at least a little while. The names are really cute. It's created a lot of interest from the public. So dad's name is Chowder. Mom is Clementine. Then there's Olive, Peaches, Pickles, Porkchop, Radish, Rutabaga, Saffron, Turnip, and Kevin. Okay, Kevin? Really? They're beloved by the public and I think, although some people really questioned it, I think they're really liking Kevin. They do everything together. They sleep together, they eat together, they play together. They roughhouse all the time. For the first week they were on exhibit, we were standing out front watching them climb up waterfalls and test everything out. They kind of go up and what they call it telescoping. They stand up on their hind legs and they look around. They're looking for anything interesting, anything new, and any sort of predators that might be in the area. They definitely have individual personalities. Mom is definitely the most dominant one. She's in charge and dad is definitely the one that takes care of the group. So he's the main caregiver. He goes and makes sure that everyone is happy, that everyone's getting along, that they're comfortable in all of the different areas of the yard and inside. It's really nice to have a large group, a really involved family group, that will be active pretty much the entire day. So I really hope that the public will come and see such an interactive, really fun exhibit.