Does anyone have experience with otters as pets? How would a fella go about getting a pair? How difficult are they to maintain compared to other fuzzy wild animals (raccoons, ferrets, sugar gliders, etc)? I’m interested in river otters mainly because I think sea otters are an endangered species, plus a marine habitat would be prohibitively expensive to handle.
A FOAF has one… They bite… You might be better off with a ferret…
Trinopus
HAMSTERS ATE MY POST!
main points:
probly illegal without a license (native species, endangered or not)–better look it up.
Favorite movie as a kid: Ring of Bright Water. Guy gets an otter, makes a mess in his bathtub, buys a cottage on a river. Cute cute cute, till the neighbor killed him with a shovel. The otter I mean.
You’ll need more water than you can do inside; why not just buy some land somewhere that already has otters on it? Then feed them Cheetos.
They bite, as in BITE, as in fingers completely OFF.
Also illegal, w/o special arrangements.
Just FYI, the species of ferrets that are kept as pets are not wild, and cannot survive for long in the wild alone. They are genetically related (to differing degrees) to other wild species like the European polecat, black-footed ferret, and one species whose name I can’t remember - perhaps the Siberian polecat? However, they are not the same by any means. They have been domesticated for the last 2000 years or so, depending on what source you consult, and are bred by humans.
If you read “Ring of Bright Water” or “The Rocks Remain” by Gavin Maxwell you will find that to keep otters he had to do a great deal of otter-proofing at his cottage. The authors of “The True Story of Okee the Otter” (sorry, can’t remember their names) also had to do a great deal of work to otter-proof their home and yet suffered the frustration when Okee managed to trash the place in spite of their efforts.
Not only can they bite, they can do a great deal of damage when they do. Edward R. Ricciuti, in his book “Killer Animals,” mentions that the wife of a Bronx Zoo curator attempted to move a captive otter from its pen and was bitten; he says “The bite, accomplished in a moment, left a wound that required thirty five stitches.” (I don’t think Mr. Ricciutti considers otters to be killers, by the way, he just thinks that a lot of small critters like otters, raccoons, and foxes aren’t good household pets.)
Also they are susceptible to both canine and feline distemper and it can kill them. If you do get one you need to contact a vet to take precautions against this.
Well, iI can only tell you thet the british wildlife presenter Terry Nutkins, who grew up with Gavin Maxwell, author of Ring of Bright Water lot two fingers to an otter: cite
I would say it seems like a poor idea.
We have some real cute ones in our Monterey Bay Aquarium, they are sea otters though. The things eat about 25% of their body weight each day & they are pretty playful. They don’t seem to bite anyone that I know of. Definitely not something you’d have as a pet, same thing for penquins, if you’re thinking of them too 
I’d so love to have a penquin. Not for long, buyt maybe for a week or so. They bite?
My understanding is that penguins don’t bite, but they’re really nothing but shit machines.
Not only do Otters bite, but they can be VERY aggressive and possessive.
I saw a show on National Geographic last year where a couple in the US rehabilitates Otters for release.
The man in the documentary was adored by the female Otter and she became VERY possessive of him and aggressive towards his wife. They had the pair since they were babies and once they had reached maturity, the became more than a handful.
Who isn’t?
It seems to me that otters would have way too high of an energy level to make a good house pet. It would be similar to some herding dogs that are great working on a farm but are absolutely terrible when kept as a house dog.
Although I think otters are cute little guys, I really do question the need to make wild animals into pets. YMMV.
Yes, penquins do bite.
I was offered a job cleaning their area & I declined after the response to the question, ‘do they bite’ was a ’ yes’.
Wayne Newton has pet penguins, they don’t bite - they don’t even light!
Actually, if MTV cribs is to be believed his penguins are like a flock of chickens and come rushing up, in the awkward way that poultry and penguins rush, for feed and attention anytime Mr. Wayne and his wife enter the penguin pen.
Do FROGS make good pets? One has moved into my garden pool-he seems to like the location.
Of course, he doesn’t seem to respond much to me…is this typical of frogs?
All I can say about the penquins is they stink quite a bit too…
j.c., these penquins aren’t the ice variety.
I saw that, too. They were more than a handful even as babies- someone on that show referred to them as “puppies with hands”. They were quite adorable in a spastic circus kind of way, but yeah, the female otter you mentioned just barely missed in her attempt to rip the wife’s throat open- a potentially fatal situation.