I hope you guys learn some cool new things reading this, I miss you all and pester (it means nag/annoy/beg constantly) your parents to get them to help you send me an email, and I want pictures!! :)
Sneaking out of Buddys pen is not easy to do when he falls asleep under your legs holding onto your foot! It is however, amazingly cute and reminds me just how absurdly cool my experience here is!
I was sitting with bent legs and moved my legs to straighten them. As you can see Buddy woke up from his nap as soon as I moved from his touch, and only lay down to sleep again after he found my leg. At about 8 seconds you can see how he touches his nose to my leg to locate it and then puts his hand on me. He does the touch often when we are chilling out together and he is lying near/next to/on me, kind of like he's just checking to make sure I'm still there! He'll just flick his head out until his nose touches me and then lie back down. He's gotta be in a deep sleep before you can sneak off!!
Buddys fur, as you can see is very thick and has two layers. The top one is chocolate brown (that glows a golden tawny colour in the sunlight) and the even thicker under coat which is a creamy colour with a tinge of orange. When all three of our otters are swimming and the top coat of fur starts to get slick, shiny and wet the pale fur on their throat can look the most amazing shade of creamy orange!
The dense and doubled layered fur is very important for giant otters. It keeps them constantly dry even when they are in and out of the river all day. When I say constantly I really mean most of the time! For example very young otters, whos fur isn't at it's full thickness yet will get wet to the skin if they swim long enough - Bel and Philip were like that when I first arrived. That's one of the reasons why grooming is essential. For the young pups it helps dries them off and for the older otters it keeps the fur clean and that means air is more easily trapped in the top layer - the air bubbles that are trapped in the fur repel the water.
As you can see a giant otters ears are comparatively small compared to their huge body! This is Buddys ear against my thumb, it's really not much bigger than say an Australian 10c piece. Don't think for a second though that this means their hearing is no good, it is absolutely amazing! In the photo Buddys ear is kind of stick out - it's away from his head. However when the giant otters swim they have the ability to flatten their ears to their head and close them off so no water gets in - cool huh! When they are being aggressive or are scared their ears will also often flatten to their skull - like a dog or cat or horse does in the same situation. As such their ears will also prick forward, again like a cat, dog or horse when they are focusing intensely to pick a new, interesting or familiar sound.
This is one of Buddys forepaws. Giant otters have 5 toes, all with multiple joints, like the knuckles on our fingers - this gives them quite amazing flexibity to grip slippery fish tightly to stop them getting away while they eat it! The skin between each finger is surprisingly soft and very stretchy. Going from the bottom up, you can see between fingers two and three he is a small cut which is healing. He would've picked it up whilst out fishing and swimming in the river.
The indentations visible in this photo are healing puncture wounds from another wild otter. The bite occurred whilst I was away in Gtown a few months ago, apparently the single wild otter spotted on various occassions had actually gone up to Buddy. The story goes that they were interacting peacefully until the wild otter suddenly bit Buddy on the base of the tail. Perhaps he smelt something (humans?) that he didn't like or suddenly felt that Buddy was a threat...who knows. Even though the wounds were quite deep they required no treatment. Giant otters heal very quickly and sure enough Buds wounds had healed in no time, however because the bite was quite deep you can still see and feel the dip if you know what to look for.
On this day I think I spent at least an hour and a half in the pen with Buddy just chilling out...I lay down on the pavement and he came to lie beside me and be in physical contact with me. This is the way I prefer to do it with the otters, as wild animals. I love them, they are amazing creatures and as special as Buddy is he is still wild. So when I am interacting with any of the otters and Bandit the raccoon for that matter, I put myself in a position where I can observe without intruding and let them choose to come to me rather than forcing myself into their personal space - I believe that's asking for trouble in a lot of cases. The fact that Buddy also then lets me stroke him and handle his hands is beyond amazing. I always keep it in mind that to a degree he's probably just putting up with me - like when I handle his hands - and to handle/touch him very carefully and gently and above all, not too much, not to smother him or intrude upon his personal space. I also always pay close attention to his body posture etc so that if he gives me signs that he's had enough, I see them as soon as possible. I am just bloody lucky in that these animals often choose to come and interact with me and I adore and cherish every single moment!
What A Day!
No comments:
Post a Comment