Tyler Shankel's Opinion on Otters (and another non-otter animal)

If you are going to spend time in Washington, you cannot get away with not having opinions about things.  Truly, people in the capital gather to discuss and argue their opinions about some of the most important matters of our times.  I, like others in this city, have plenty of opinions, and today I will share my opinions about otters.

River otters, more precisely.  I have opinions about sea otters too, but let's not get sidetracked.  There is a raft (the name of a group of otters) of North American River Otters at the National Zoological Park, in Washington, DC, which you can go to see anytime.  I went there, at first uninformed and uninterested in otters. But that's the wonderful thing about the zoo and the all of the Smithsonian Institute's various establishments: you become inspired to learn more about the things you discover while visiting.

For some people, they might discover a passion for studying human space travel after visiting the Air and Space Museum.  For me, it was an admiration and interest in Lontra canadensis.  I arrived at the zoo before the group I was going with, because I love zoos, and never get tired of them.  I had just finished observing the sloth bear, Francois (who was very cool), when I saw a large crowd of people around an open exhibit.  At first, I was skeptical; what could be so interesting that it would draw people away from a sloth bear?

I approached the exhibit, and was greeted with this scene:

As you can clearly see, these otters were having a good time that day.  From the clumsy way they walk on land to the adorable way they rolls around to dry themselves, otters are clearly awesome.  But after researching more, I discovered even more awesome otter facts!  For example: otters, like many trendy humans in DC, are generally pescetarians.  But they are are also predators, crafted by evolution to hunt their underwater prey.  In addition, they have transparent eyelids that they use to see underwater, as well as bodies that are extremely hydrodynamic, allowing them to be extremely maneuverable underwater. Also, they are not (currently) threatened with extinction, so you don't have to feel sad about all of them dying like you do with pandas.

Experiences like this are why I love going to zoos and the Smithsonian Institute system around DC. If you ever find yourself in DC on a nice day, I highly recommend that you go see these otters (and Francois, if he's around).

Edit: I apologize for the low quality video; Blogger doesn't upload videos well.  If you want to see more otters, Youtube has plenty of videos of them being adorable.