When I show people photos of the otters in our care, almost everyone is surprised to learn that Palawan even has them. I thought I'd share my experiences with these wonderful creatures and how I've come to learn how important they are to our ecosystem before they go the way of the pangolin or scaly anteater. People are just now finding out about the pangolin, but it's almost too late, as they being harvested at alarmingly epic rates as a food delicacy and for "traditional Chinese medicine", which has no scientific basis. In fact, the pangolin is the most endangered animal on the planet today. I don't want this to happen to the otters.💓
All three orphaned pups were, what we thought at the time, males. We have since found out they were all females. I was lucky I had on hand some puppy/kitten, low lactose milk to feed them with. Since otter's milk is 6% higher in fat, I had to add full dairy cream and to offset that I added probiotic pills to help them digest it. They did very well on this for 2 1/2 months. We then ran out of puppy milk and couldn't find any at all on the island. I did find some human infant formula that was nonlactose..but after 3 days their fur began to fall out, which freaked me out. I wrote to the wonderful women of the various otter organizations and, was advised to go ahead and wean them since they were getting of age to do so. We found small fish fingerlings to give them and within a week, their fur grew back! When we didn't find the right fish, we supplemented their diet with scrambled eggs again, upon advice.
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Otter pups/kits eyes and ears do not open
for about a month. They were totally helpless. |
Palawan's otters are hunted and eaten by certain villagers in my community! Some are sold to poachers, then to a middleman for the illegal wildlife trade in places such as Singapore where it is still legal to own them as pets, as far as I know.
Otters in Palawan are called Asian small-clawed otters since their claws are indeed small. They are monogamous, which means they mate for life. The female gives birth to 2 litters per year and each subsequent litter is raised by the siblings and taught to swim, hunt, and even where to go to the toilet. Their combined method of peeing and pooing at the same time is called "sprainting". There is one communal toilet and then there are sprainting areas that mark their territories and boundaries.
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| After about a month, they began to open their eyes, but couldn't focus too well. |
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| With a face as cute as this, I don't understand how people can hunt and eat them. |
I searched the web on how to care for them and found several organizations dedicated to preserving, rescuing and rehabilitating otters. Without them I would have been totally lost and insecure. The organization that has helped me most over the years has been, IOSF -
International Otter Survival Fund, without whom, I would have been so lost.
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| At around 2 months old, be let them wander into our creek. At first they were quite reticent. |
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| When otters are small their fur is not yet waterproof and they look more like wet rats than otters, except for the blunt faces. So cute though no matter what. The wild otter pups are always with their siblings and quite needy, so we had to hold them a lot and give them lots of attention. |
When we weaned them, we needed to make sure they also had plenty of water on hand to drink. We had a shallow basin which was for the bottom of a planter and we used that. They were introduced to water there with no fear of drowning. Later we let them follow us to the creek we have on the property and there they would frolic for a few minutes a day and then they wanted back to the lair. Not so later on. Now it is hard to keep them from the water!
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| One of the otters at 4 months old. |
I hope that if you read my tales of these otters you will share your new knowledge with those who tell you they hunt or sell them. It all starts with us educating those we come in contact with instead of judging them, which does no good. We need to find a sustainable livelihood for poachers and try to teach them that when all the animals of Palawan are gone, then what will they do?
This is what the little guys sounded like when they woke up and wanted to eat. They basically slept most of the time.
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