Otters are fascinating creatures. (In all candor I find a lot of creatures fascinating.) They are quick, bright, curious. When I was a young man, at my parent's place on Bear Creek in Allamakee County, Iowa, we generally had a pair along the creek; we'd seem them raising their babies through the summers, and they had a slide of mud that went down the hill across from the house and ended up in the creek. They never seemed to get tired of that, and the parents would teach their babies the joys of tummy-sledding. They were absent from northeast Iowa in my earlier years, but thanks to some reintroduction efforts and, mostly just due to wandering individuals moving into their old habitat from Minnesota and Wisconsin (this was back when some good things still came out of Minnesota), they were re-established by the time I was in high school.
Otters are creatures that seem to just have a lot of fun in life.
So it's no surprise that security cameras in the Baltimore National Aquarium caught a pair of otters enjoying something they don't see all that often: Snow.
A pair of otters slid into their week with an early morning romp in the snow at Baltimore’s National Aquarium.
Security cameras captured the fun around 7 a.m. at the aquarium, which described the otters as “rolling, sliding and romping through the snow” on an outside deck near the city’s Inner Harbor.
While a nor’easter blasted much of the Northeast, one of the visiting otters at the aquarium rolled on its back on the snowy deck before scampering into a running start to slide across the snow.
“Marylanders may have been fretting about the snow, but the otters visiting our Harbor Wetland exhibit were not!” the aquarium wrote in a Facebook post.
Seeing this will otterly make your day. Watch:
Now, if that's not a critter that knows how to take some joy in life, then I don't know what is.Read More: Now Here's a Story You Otter Read
Baby Otter's Screechy Rescue Ends With Happy Reunion
Our Bear Creek otters didn't let up on their sledding in winter, either, so this isn't all that surprising. In fact, back then, they extended their slide up the hill, and sometimes hit that icy, spring-fed stream at full tilt. And that water was cold in the summer; in winter, it was cold. But these animals are otterly suited for cold water.
The North American river otter (Lontra canadensis), which is what these Baltimore critters look to be, is found throughout most of the northern states of the lower 48, in Canada, and in Alaska, south of the Brooks Range. They are, as noted, bright, inquisitive, and adaptable, which are all great survival traits - ones that most of we humans share. But otters are also fun-loving, and for that, they earn a special place in our hearts. And, as it happens, they do very well in colder weather.
They feed on fish, for the most part, although they are somewhat ottertunistic, and won't shy away from crustaceans or small mammals - anything they can catch in or near the water. In fact, they are so adaptable, so intelligent, that they may well be one of the species of mammal best suited to accompany us into otter space. Any creature that comes back from such a trip, well, won't they have a tail to tell?They may even be well-suited to work with a spaceship's ceramic components. You know what you call a semi-aquatic mustelid that works with ceramics? A p-otter.
I otter quit while I'm ahead. I'll be here all week - try the veal.
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