- [Man] What's up little otter? What's up little otter?
Little otter. Oh it wants to get back up here.
Holy s***!
(yelling)
(otter squealing)
- [Narrator] Otters: so soft, cuddly, adorable,
but underneath all that cuteness, there's a dark side
(dramatic music)
This is The Dark Side of Otters in 6 Minutes.
Ready? Go.
- My business sometimes the cuter the
animal is, the more dangerous it is.
- [Narrator] And that seems to be the case for otters.
Take it from Dave Lueck, who runs a humane
nuisance/wildlife trapping business in Florida.
- [Dave] As cute as they are, they can be like,
3 feet of muscle. All they do is swim all day long
for the most part, they have razor sharp claws, teeth.
When you do see those things in the wild, you want to
keep it at a distance, so I always cringe when I see
people trying to get really close to an otter
that's in the water to get pictures. It's like,
yeah you kinda want to stay your distance. People, they
just, they look at them and just because they're so
cute on those videos, and they really are cute,
especially baby ones if you get them. They have this
really high pitch squeal.
(squeals)
You know I love otters, but you can't be like oh, I
love them! I'm not going to hurt it!
I mean, it's a wild animal, it's nature can be brutal
sometimes. It might even just be playing
and it can take your finger off.
- [Narrator] Otters may be much stronger, and faster
than they look.
- [Dave] I often tell people the animal I'm
most scared of that I deal with is an otter.
You'd be surprised how strong they are for their size.
Those things are just swimming and eating and chasing
fish, they're long and slender, very muscular.
Otters, I mean, they can get up to almost 3 foot long,
here in Florida, 20 pounds, though
I've had one who was 25 pounds.
- [Narrator] In other parts of the world, otters can
grow up to 99 pounds. Otters are also extremely
intelligent.
- They tend to forge together cooperatively, they
will actually swim down rivers in these V shapes and
round up fish together.
- [Dave] Otters can use sustained attacks, like I
said, they are smart, they can keep coming back, and
come back, they can kind of, you know, think out the
situation and what's the best way to go at you.
- [Narrator] Otters, whether territorial
or rabid, may also attack family pets.
- [Dave] Otter probably had just moved into that area
so it probably sees that dog as a threat. Smaller
dogs are the ones that are going to get killed,
they possibly could be seen as prey. They will go after
ducks and things like that. Bigger dog's going to have
a better chance against an otter, especially if it's
on land, but it's usually right on the edge of the water.
Most things aren't going to have a chance against
an otter in the water, including a person.
- [Narrator] In states like Florida, humans have pushed
deeper into the otter's natural habitat,
and otters have pushed back.
- [Dave] Past year, locally, a lady in
her kayak got attacked but why they did it, maybe she
was kayaking right by that den, and the mom
was just protecting her babies there.
There have been, you know, reports of rabid otters
attacking people. In Sarasota, there was an elderly
gentleman walking down the road, and a rabid otter
knocked him to the ground and was just going at him,
and there was a 911 call of it. I remember they
played it on the news.
It's horrific, finally they did get it off him, he
was hitting it with shovels and stuff like that, and
I think he ended up in the emergency room.
- [Narrator] Those aren't even the most disturbing stories
about these adorably dangerous creatures. Otters
sometimes engage in such astonishingly perverse acts
it almost sounds like it must be a joke.
- My husband told me that otters rape baby seals.
(laughter)
He wanted to ruin otters for you! He had to look up
that fact! It's true by the way.
(laughter)
- [Narrator] Comedian Michelle Wolf is right. It's true.
We're ruining otters for you, and sadly it's based on actual
research. According to a study published in the Scientific
Journal Aquatic Mammals, instances of male otters engaged
in forced copulation with juvenile Pacific Harbor seals,
were reported at least 19 times in Monterey Bay, California
between 2000 and 2002. The accounts are
graphic, and unfortunately not an uncommon occurrence.
Before intercourse in one case, the otter gripped the seal's
head with its forepaws and bit it on the nose. The otter
held the seal pups head underwater, the seal pup did
not survive the encounter.
- [Dave] Nature's very brutal, raping of the other
species by otter, there's probably a reason why they're
doing that.
- [Narrator] The studies' authors theorize that this
behavior was the result of the dominance hierarchy
of otters, and an increase in the number of males
relative to females, which can lead to scarcity
for mating.
- [Dave] Everything in wildlife is just eat or be eaten,
you know, every second of the day is
'what can I do to survive' or not get eaten.
So otters are just doing what otter does, they don't,
you know, have to go to otter court or anything like that
and explain their actions. Anything goes in wildlife,
and there's usually a reason
behind everything they're doing.
- [Narrator] How can otters be so cute and so dangerous
at the same time? Well the real answer is that's
just nature. If we're shocked to learn about the dark
side of otters, or other wild animals, it's likely
because we were imposing our own human morality onto nature.
- [Dave] A lot of people with otters, they try to
anthropomorphize them, it's just projecting human traits
on them, but people just, you know,
don't realize they are wild animals. It's not that
that's just some evil otter that's going out.
- [Narrator] And that includes projecting how adorable
they are. But don't worry, you can still love otters,
but if you see an otter and want to share a video
of it's cute little face, remember you might
not want to get too close.
(yelling)
(ending music)