Snowstorm Frolics in Baltimore – RedState
Otters are fascinating creatures. (Frankly, I find a lot of creatures fascinating.) They’re fast, bright, and curious. When I was a young man, at my parents’ house at Bear Creek in Allamakee County, Iowa, we usually had a couple along the creek; it looked like they were raising their babies in the summers, and they had a mud slide that came down the hill in front of the house and into the creek. They never seemed to tire of it and parents taught their babies the joys of sledding on their stomachs. They were absent from northeast Iowa during my early years, but through some reintroduction efforts and, mainly due to the movement of stray individuals into their former habitat from Minnesota and Wisconsin (this was back when good things were still coming out of Minnesota), they were reestablished by the time I was in high school.
Otters are creatures that seem to have a lot of fun in life.
So it’s no surprise that security cameras at the National Aquarium in Baltimore captured a pair of otters enjoying something they don’t see that often: snow.
A pair of otters started their week with an early morning frolic in the snow at the National Aquarium in Baltimore.
Security cameras captured the scene around 7 a.m. at the aquarium, describing the otters as “rolling, sliding and frolicking in the snow” on an outdoor patio near the city’s inner harbor.
As a northeast wind swept across much of the Northeast, one of the otters visiting the aquarium rolled onto its back on the snow-covered bridge before running and sliding on the snow.
“Marylanders may have been worried about the snow, but not the otters visiting our Harbor Wetland exhibit! »wrote the aquarium in a Facebook post.
See this will otter make your day. Watch:
Now, if that’s not a creature that knows how to take a little joy in life, then I don’t know what is.
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Our Bear Creek otters didn’t abandon their sleds in winter either, so it’s not that surprising. In fact, back then they would extend their slide all the way to the top of the hill and sometimes hit this icy spring-fed stream at full tilt. And this water was cold in summer; in winter it was cold. But these animals are otter suitable for cold water.
The North American River Otter (Lontra canadensis), what these Baltimore creatures look like, is found in most of the northern lower 48 states, Canada, and Alaska south of the Brooks Range. They are, as noted, bright, curious, and adaptable, all of which are excellent survival traits – which most of us humans share. But otters also like to have fun and that’s why they deserve a special place in our hearts. And it turns out that they do very well in cold weather.
They feed mostly on fish, although they are somewhat otertunistand will not hesitate to approach crustaceans or small mammals – anything they can catch in or near the water. In fact, they are so adaptable, so intelligent, that they may well be one of the best-adapted mammal species to accompany us in otter space. Any creature that returns from such a journey, well, won’t it have a tail tell ?
They might even be well suited to working with the ceramic components of a spacecraft. You know what you call a semi-aquatic mustelid that works with ceramics? A potter.
I otter stop while I’m ahead. I’ll be here all week – try the veal.
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