Breakfast of champions!

Otters celebrate Team GB’s Olympic success with a tasty fish ice ring!

Keeper Louise Caddy comments “While the Olympic Team GB are having great success in Paris, our very own otter family have been putting their swimming and acrobat skills to the test with fish ice rings.

Each ice ring is full of fish treats including large prawns with the shells on, making this a fun, interesting and very interactive enrichment treat on the hot days this week. The otters find foraging in this way really rewarding, providing them with mental stimulation, social interaction and exercise.

Our otter family currently have four new little pups called Biryani, Chapati, Pad Thai and Noodle, who are starting to come out more each day. Although it seems to be mum Pippin, dad Katarni, and their four older sisters and brother (Sushi, Kimchi, Yuzu and Dumpling) who are making the most of the fish ice rings at the moment.

It has certainly proved very entertaining not just for the otters but for visitors as well and is lovely to see them so active and having tremendous fun.”

Otter eating a large prawn

Asian Short-clawed Otters

• These otters, also known as Short-clawed Otters, are very social and form large family groups where brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles all help in rearing young.
• They communicate in little squeals and are very playful often rolling around with a pebble in their ‘hands’ or digging around a rock.
• They are the smallest otters, usually weighing about 5 kilos or 11 pounds. Their diet includes fish, meat and crab which they love. They like to eat little and often with short naps between meals.
• They are seriously threatened by rapid habitat destruction, hunting and pollution. Their population trend is decreasing despite being a protected species.