Captive Otters Adopt Orphaned Pups

  • Now that surrogate moms raise the otters, the goal is for the pups to never see or hear a human. To get up close to the pup, Ann had to put on a Darth Vader costume of sorts. (Photo by Angela Hains)

For animals in most zoos and
aquariums, the door from freedom
to captivity only swings one way.
But at the Monterey Bay Aquarium,
sea otters from its exhibits teach
wild sea otter orphans how to
survive in the ocean. Ann Dornfeld
has the story:

Transcript

For animals in most zoos and aquariums, the door from
freedom to captivity only swings one way. But at the
Monterey Bay Aquarium, sea otters from its exhibits teach
wild sea otter orphans how to survive in the ocean. Ann
Dornfeld has the story:

Rosa has her baby in a headlock. That’s actually how
southern sea otters hold their young.

“The pup is essentially unconscious – it’s very much
asleep, and Rosa is holding it as a female would in the
wild: she’s got it sort of teed off to her side with a paw
around its neck.”

Andy Johnson is the director of the Monterey Bay
Aquarium’s Sea Otter Research and Conservation
program.

By the end of the19th century, sea otters had been hunted
to extinction in some parts of the Pacific.

Lilian Carswell is with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
She says these days, pollution and disease are sea otters’
biggest threats. And she says a lot of other species
depend on otters’ survival.

“Sea otters are important for a number of reasons. One is
that they’re a top predator in the nearshore marine
ecosystem and they play an important role in structuring
what that ecosystem looks like.”

Hungry sea otters keep sea urchin populations in check.
When urchins overpopulate an area, they can mow down
entire kelp forests that provide food and shelter for
hundreds of species.

So to help conserve the otter population, Andy Johnson
and his team at the Monterey Bay Aquarium pair orphaned
pups from the wild with the female exhibit otters. The goal
is for the surrogate mother to not only care for the pup, but
also to teach it all the skills it will need to be released back
into the wild at about six months old.

A volunteer has just tossed some food into the pool where
Rosa and the orphaned pup are swimming. Rosa grabs
the live crab as the pup watches.

“Rosa’s quite skilled with those, so she’ll pretty much take
that apart in a few minutes. We’ll have to watch the pup
and see if the pup approaches the crab without getting
pinched. I have to admit it’s quite amusing to see these
young animals confronting these crabs ’cause these crabs
are pretty formidable on their own.”

Rosa ends up breaking off a leg for her adopted pup, who
decides the shell is too much work. Before long, though,
the pup will learn some of the same impressive skills that
adult sea otters have – like how to use tools to open clams
and sea urchins.

Before the surrogate program began, workers and
volunteers used to hand-rear these pups. They’d even
take the pups swimming in Monterey Bay to acclimate
them to their future home.

But that made the released otters expect food from
boaters and other people they encountered in the bay.

Now that surrogate moms raise the otters, the goal is for
the pups to never see or hear a human. We’ve been
watching the sea otters interact from a TV monitor near
the pool. To get up close to the pup, I have to put on a
Darth Vader costume of sorts – starting with a huge black
nylon poncho.

(sound of the poncho)

Ann: “This is a welding mask?”

Andy Johnson: “A very cheap welding mask.”

Rosa isn’t fooled. As I approach the pool, she shoots over
to see whether I have food.

(sound of the otter sniffing around)

Rosa was a rescued pup. She was hand-reared before the
surrogate program began. After she was released into
Monterey Bay, she had to be recaptured because she was
jumping on kayaks and divers.

“We found that with the sea otters, putting them with an
adult female in a fairly shallow pool for six months far
outweighs whatever we were doing trying to raise these
pups.”

Sea otter populations are recovering at a slow pace in
California. But this program is contributing to the
population.

Johnson says the apparent survival rate of the re-released
pups is now about as good as that of newly-weaned pups
in the wild. Some have even successfully raised their own
pups, using skills they picked up from an exhibit otter at
the aquarium.

For The Environment Report, I’m Ann Dornfeld.

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Global Trade in Frog Legs Bad for Frogs

  • At least 200 million, but maybe as many as one billion frogs are eaten every year (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

Frog legs are showing up on more menus all over Europe and North America. Biologists say this is just more bad news for frogs. Frogs are already in serious trouble from habitat loss and a fatal disease caused by a fungus. Rebecca Williams reports:

Transcript

Frog legs are showing up on more menus all over Europe and North America. Biologists say… this is just more bad news for frogs. Frogs are already in serious trouble from habitat loss and a fatal disease caused by a fungus. Rebecca Williams reports:

It’s hard to know exactly how many frogs we eat. Only a fraction is reported in global trade numbers. So, at least 200 million but maybe as many as one billion frogs are eaten every year.

Ian Warkentin has been looking at our appetite for frog legs. He’s the lead author of a new study in the journal Conservation Biology.

He says some frogs are raised for food. But most of the frogs are taken from the wild.

“There was a harvest in North America and a harvest in Europe that depleted those stocks. The source then became India and Bangladesh and now we’re moving to Indonesia and Southeast Asia. And our concern is, well, we’re just going to harvest them to the point where there no longer is a viable harvest any more.”

He’d like to see better oversight on wild frog harvests, and more commercial frog farming. But, until that happens, he says you might want to take a pass on the frog leg platter.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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A New Approach to Dairy Farming

  • At Hawthorne Valley Farm, calves are raised with their mothers - unlike other dairy farms (Photo by Kinna Ohman)

Some cutting edge farmers are stepping
away from concentrating on only production of
meat and milk on their farms. They’re starting
to focus on ways to give their animals healthy,
long lives. And they’re finding more benefits
than they ever imagined. Kinna Ohman reports:

Transcript

Some cutting edge farmers are stepping
away from concentrating on only production of
meat and milk on their farms. They’re starting
to focus on ways to give their animals healthy,
long lives. And they’re finding more benefits
than they ever imagined. Kinna Ohman reports:

The idea of dairy cows grazing out in a pasture is rare – even though advertisers use this
scene all the time to sell us cheese and milk.

The reality is, most dairy cows spend their lives inside big sheds. They’re pushed to produce a lot of milk. And
they often die a premature death.

(cows mooing)

So there’s something relaxing about a farm like Hawthorne Valley. Maybe it’s just
knowing places like these still exist.

The farm’s surrounded by the rolling hills of New York’s Hudson Valley. There’s a big
red barn. Cows graze out in green pastures. And this year? You’ll even see some little
calves hanging out with their mothers.

Steffen Schneider’s grinning because of those little calves. He’s the dairy farm manager
at Hawthorne Valley. He’s standing at a pasture fence. And he can’t take his eyes off the scene
in front of him.

“It’s a great sight to see a little herd of calves galloping like little kids right through
the herd and the mother looking, being very proud of their ones. This mother right
here we’re looking at Patricia, she has her eye exactly on her own baby there,
Pepper, he’s one of those guys lying right there. Yeah, it’s wonderful.”

Schneider started letting his cows bring up their calves around a year ago. But that’s
really rare in the dairy industry.

At most farms, they take calves away from their mothers within a day of being born.
That’s because farmers want to keep their cows in milk production. They don’t want to waste that
milk on the calves. That push for high milk production does take a toll on dairy cows.

Kent Anderson’s a veterinarian who works on these types of farms. He says he
understand the business needs of farmers. But he says its difficult seeing cows pushed so
hard.

“But one thing that distresses me a bit is that a normal bovine should have five, ten,
twelve, productive years. But as agriculture changes, the average dairy cow makes it
two and a half lactations, which means, she’s not even 5 years old, and she’s gone.”

Many farmers think that’s the best way to run their dairy farms.

But Steffen Schneider says he wants to balance business with the natural needs of his
animals. And letting his cows raise their calves is just one more step. He says the cows
are less stressed. And they’re seeing some great changes in the calves.

“Within a few weeks, it was amazing to watch how healthy those calves were, how
quickly they grew. They were like different animals than we were used to seeing in
our pens. And so much more awake in their senses, so much stronger limbs. Just
much more vibrant animals.”

Schneider wonders how these improvements will help the calves as they become adults.
And even how it could help the quality of their milk. But more than anything else, he just
seems amazed it took him twenty five years to take this step.

“It’s really crazy that through just greed we don’t just expose those calves to their
mothers. And think we need every single last drop of milk – forgetting the only
reason the milk even comes in is because the cow gives birth. I’m really very happy
I finally, we finally, did it.”

Only a small group of dairy farmers are letting their cows bring up their young. But they hope to show other farmers and consumers there is a way to combine business with a more natural life for their animals.

For The Environment Report, I’m Kinna Ohman.

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