Meet Mote’s otterly endearing new animals

Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium just got a little bit cuter with the addition of three 10-month-old North American river otters.

Mote’s newest exhibit, “Otters and Their Waters,” will open tomorrow, Feb. 26, and features Huck, Pippi and Jane, otters who were orphaned at a young age and are unreleasable to the wild.

Huck was found last September in Melbourne, and both Jane and Pippi were rescued in spring 2015 and spent time at a rehabilitation facility in South Carolina. All three otters arrived to Mote in December.

Huck, the least shy and most brave of the three, loves swimming. Jane, the most shy, is the quickest eater and enjoys rolling around in the sand. Pippi doesn’t like sand and didn’t enjoy swimming until she was brought to the exhibit, where she was the first one in the water.

“They interact really well together,” aquarium biologist Amanda Foltz said. “There’s not a dominant one.”

Visitors can experience the new exhibit on two levels, an aquatic area, which provides views of the otters swimming, and a land area. The exhibit was inspired by the otters’ natural watershed habitat.

“It’s a wonderfully unique exhibit with almost 360-degree viewing,” said Mote Aquarium Assistant Vice President Evan Barniskis. “People can really see what the life of an otter really is like. We’re so excited to finally get it open.”

The exhibit will include narrated training sessions at designated times, where visitors will learn about the otters, who are trained using positive reinforcement.

The otters can be seen swimming, sliding and playing during Mote’s normal hours of operation, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. seven days a week. For more information, call 388-4441.

“This exhibit is unlike anything people have ever seen before,” Barniskis said. “It’s going to be hard for us to get any work done with these guys right here.”