OTTERS!

with its own story, experience and
preferences. Each otter intelligently
analyses its surroundings and
constructs a plan of action, and
carries it out with exactly as much
haste as it decides the situation
warrants. Otters are adaptable,
versatile, opportunistic - and they
don’t read the scientific literature!
Any given otter may conform to
the research-derived principles
expected of an otter - or it may
not. For me then, each otter is
valuable, each otter is important,
each otter is part of the web of
interconnections that make up
reality.
Reducing an otter, a bright, busy,
decisive, animal that lives each
second of its life at full tilt, to a skin,
to a fur coat, to a dead thing to
be bought and sold is simply
obscene. Keeping an otter in a
zoo or as a pet in a bleak concrete
pen without opportunities to play,
squatting in a corner dull-eyed
and lethargic, is unforgivable. If
we don’t care, if we turn a blind
eye without comment, without
trying to change the situation, we
lose part of our humanity. Animals
cannot have compassion for
other species - we can. Animals
cannot take responsibility for
others - we can. And because we
can, we have a clear moral duty
to do so.
While I was thinking about this,
I came across a quote from the
early 20th century write Ernest
Thompson Seton, who precisely
encapsulates why I love otters:
“The joyful, keen and fearless otter:
mild and loving to his own kind
and gentle with his neighbour
of the stream; full of play and
gladness in his life, full of courage
in his stress; steadfast in death; the
noblest little soul that ever went
four footed through the woods.”
17