teen fiction

“They look like sea otters to me”

Sea otters always make me think, fondly, of the Vancouver Aquarium where Nyac, Milo, and Tanu float around like cuddly little bears. This is my only base of knowledge of these furry floaters. So before I started reading Island of My Own by Andrea Spalding, I decided to swim into these creatures’ world and learn a thing or two.

It’s no wonder I believe sea otters to be so cute and cuddly! Barbara J. Feldman of SufNetKids tells us that

Unlike whales and sea lions that rely on a layer of blubber to keep them warm, the sea otter is protected by its thick fur. While we humans have between 20,000 to 100,000 hairs on our heads, the sea otter has from 600,000 to a million hairs per square inch.

They reinforce the cuddly look by holding hands while they float. The Vancouver Aquarium website notes that this is a natural behaviour.

If you see the sea otters here holding paws, there’s a good chance that one of them is Milo; he tends to initiate this type of behaviour. Sea otters in the wild will sometimes hold paws with other otters to form a raft. Find out more about sea otter rafting in the wild.

Some fast-facts about sea otters:

• The Vancouver Aquarium buys $20 000 worth of clams, fish and crabs for each sea otter annually.
• Sea otters can dive up to 330 feet when foraging for food.
• Sea otters are the only mammals other than primates, birds and a few other animals known to use tools. They use small rocks or other objects to pry shellfish from rocks and to hammer them open.
• Oil spills, habitat loss and degradation, food limitation, disease, fishing gear entrapment and conflict with shellfish fisheries are all threats to sea otters.
• Sea otters can give birth to twins!

sources: Defenders of Wildlife, Vancouver Aquarium, Surfnetkids

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