Another Day, Another Bite

Another update and a few more pics of the otter clan and finally an introduction for Bandit.

This is a large fish Buddy caught and promptly consumed the day before yesterday.

Buddy alternates between being our golden boy and a teenager with selective hearing. I have noticed since I've arrived - all of 3 weeks, that he is getting progressively harder and harder to bring up most days. Then other days we call him and he comes straight up, right at our heels, no issues what so ever... At his age it is getting towards the time he would be booted out of the family and have to make it out on his own. Unfortunately since Buddy is blind, if he were to decide to head out he probably wouldn't last a night. There has been some discussion as to the possibility of him going to a zoo - Jacksonville Zoo in the states has been mentioned. We'll have to wait and see...

This is what happens to a full bottle of mozipel (we morned its passing) gets into Buddys jaws...He took it into the water before we could grab it and we weren't about to grab it from his mouth because that is asking for a bite. Giant Otters are very defensive over their food. Even when it's not food. He chewed it thoroughly, enough to puncture it and send mozipel shooting everywhere. Needless to say he didn't like that one iota and sneezed repeatedly - we laughed and laughed at him, the sucker.

Uh..sleeping...angel..? He is no longer called a delinquent. He is no longer called a terrorist. He is now
Devil Child.


Philip for the most part is ok...it's the other parts that are the problem. He is getting worse and worse after the food is gone now. Instead of screaming and wandering over to probably eventually bite your toe/s he now charges like a bat out of hell screaming at the top of his lungs. He will either bite feet/toes or jump up on your legs (leaving scratches like mine) to try and reach the empty container and invariably turns and bites the inside of your thigh, which, is a rather tender place to be bitten. He has drawn blood or left a bruise 4 times. Inside of forearm, inside of thigh, index finger and big toe (that one was today).

I no longer try and wack him on the nose - that is asking to get a finger bitten...like he did mine. I am now getting quite practiced at standing my ground (even though he's only all of 6.25kg or so, he has a strong jaw with a mouth full of wild giant otter carnivore slicing, crunching, puncturing teeth), sidestepping his charge at the last second and giving him a good shove. This sends him sliding across the ground for a distance and seems to get the message across.

Two days ago he threw a massive tantrum down at the river and charged me fullball so I did the sidestep-shove, he immediately turned and charged again, so I repeated the sidestep-shove but harder this time, sending him sliding a metre or so. He looked up at me in alarm and barked (something they do when they are unsure of something (often something/one new) and backed off. That'll teach him.
Eventually.
Hopefully.
However that said he is still sneaky about some of his bites, and despite my mad skillz he can still catch me unawares P:

This photo of Bel was taken during their 1130 lagoon feeding. For some reason she often likes to come and eat near or on my feet :).

She is as sweet as ever. Salvador who hasn't seen her for nearly two weeks says she has grown. Stefi and I think she has despite the weekly weighing showing little to no difference. She is just growing at Bel pace...leetle bit by leetle bit.

Now comes the biggest culprit for biting me this week. Bandit the Crab-Eating Raccoon.

This was taken tonight when he came down from his tree to say hello. Since he doesnt stay still for very long I couldnt get a good photo of him checking me out and saying hello tonight. Will try again soon. As you can see is a very handsome, very muscley animal.

He used up my biting quota for possibly my entire stay in the space of 5-10minutes I guess.
Long story short he was pissy about being locked back in his night den for part of the morning. So he took it out on Diane and I when we let him out again at about 930am. When a 2yr old fully grown raccoon that is built like a cat crossed with a minibear on steroids with canines roughly 1.5cm long is pissed off at you, shit is hitting the fan, if you'll excuse the expression. I drew his attention off Diane because the last thing I wanted is for her to be seriously bitten, as it is she is bitten too much. So I walked the 20m to his tree which he sleeps in during the day with him dragging along - he had his hands wrapped around one of my ankles.

When I stood still at the base of the tree he then proceeded to alternate between jumping repeatedly up at my arms trying to bite them and biting and literally chewing on my ankles. So I stood with my arms crossed behind my back out of his reach. I stood stock still looking straight ahead not reacting to him at all to see whether he would get bored of it if he was paid no attention. Unfortunately that did not work. At all. He gradually bit my ankles and my damn ankle bone harder and harder, eventually he bit too far, I'd had enough and gave him a kickshove. It was beautiful technique - leg curled back, foot stretched out, clean follow through. Again it did nothing to dissuade him from his warpath.

During this time he had transferred to Diane a few times when she called him but I would quickly call him back so he wouldn't have the chance to bite her badly. Finally I'd just had enough of his shenanigans and decided what the hell just grab the little turd up. So I reached down, darted past his teeth and grabbed him hard by the scruff of the neck and picked him up. With Bandit his neck is practically pure muscle and loose skin so if you don't take a firm grip chances are he is going to swivel around and bite your wrist. Needless to say he went still very quickly, but the next thought was "now what?...the tree...dump him on the tree and maybe he'll get the message" so that's what I did, I half threw him at the tree.
Back he came. I picked him up again and by this time Diane had appeared with some of the otters left over fish. We showed it to him, put it on the ground and then I dumped him (rather unceremoniously) on said fish. Nope. Not interested. I held him by the scruff in one hand and offered him fish with the other but nope he really was on the warpath now.

I have no idea how long we were at it for but Kenneth (one of the guys here who takes people on guided walks and boat trips etc) must've heard the commotion - Diane was telling Bandit off rather loudly and I was threatening to pick him up and really throw him, like throw him up the tree - and came to the rescue. During the last moments of confrontation Bandit leapt up and grabbed a hold of my left hand, then as he fell back down one of his canines proceeded to slice open the meat of my thumb on the palm side (thankfully it was much shallower than it could have been). Needless to say I swore and threatened Bandit that hed soon be losing a limb. Bandit then realised that Kenneth meant business and bolted, after a few laps of the trees and otter house we ended up putting him in purgatory in his enclosure with only 2 bits of fish for Pat to come and let him out later.


After it was cleaned and treated with good old reliable Betadine.

So in the end not so long story short haha but hey for all it was a crazy experience it was also freaking awesome haha. At the end of it my hands were shaking from the huge and prolonged adrenalin rush of tussling with him. It also showed me that if I ever need to deal with Bandit again I have absolutely no qualms about grabbing him up by the scruff and doing what needs to be done, which for me is satisfying to know.

Since much of this post has been about biting which involves teeth here is a photo I took down at the river after Buddy had fed on most of this piranha but left the teeth behind. The teeth are shaped like some sharks...cool huh