Your smile for the day by Niki2

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Your smile for the day

POSTED BY: NIKI2
UPDATED: Sunday, April 22, 2012 19:14
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VIEWED: 1583
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Thursday, April 19, 2012 7:18 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Otters love to play. Children love to play. Sometimes these things work out...

Not the only instance, either:

I HATE places like this and what it means for the animals. Dolphins do the same thing. It's not at all surprising; both species are smart and playful, so being stuck in an exhibit has got to drive them nuts! Still, it makes for cute videos.

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Thursday, April 19, 2012 7:26 AM

CAVETROLL

Otters are attention whores. But you just can't help but love watching them. Curse your evil cuteness, Otters!

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Thursday, April 19, 2012 7:40 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Agreed. There are few species who are bright enough, and for whom food is plentiful enough, that they enjoy play. Otters and dolphins are among them. RIVER otters, however; sea otters don't play much, but then food sources are tougher for them. But river otters are fantastic, I've had a love affair with them for ages!

Oh, hell, just 'cuz:

They'll play with anyone

I mean ANYONE (especially dogs)

or anyTHING

including ROCKS

in any weather

They LOVE to slide, and make "otter slides" on riverbank mud...can't find footage, a waterfall will have to do
buthttp://

and just know instinctively how to be adorable

The two young otters you see here are NOT pets (which is illegal) They are rothers Fenway and Sydney, who live at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom just North of us in Vallejo, CA.

The guy who photographed them is an animal caretaker who works there and, just as I "had" to do when I worked at Marineworld, as part of his job "has to" interact with the youngest critters to give them play and exercise--tough job, I can tell you!

Aside from being illegal, otters as pets are HORRIFIC! I met a couple in the Santa Cruz Mountains and went to visit them and their two river otters. When someone says otters can get into anything, they mean ANYTHING...everything in the house had to be above otter height, drawers had to have locks on them (not latches, latches are nothing to otters), there were no rugs, and their dining room table was a picnic table!

Hell, I could go on watching this shit forever...enjoy!

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Thursday, April 19, 2012 10:33 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

I submit. Cuteness overload!

" We're all just folk. " - Mal

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

"The world is a dangerous place. Not because of the people who are evil; but because of the people who don't do anything about it." - Albert Einstein

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Thursday, April 19, 2012 11:37 AM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht

Hi Niki, have you ever seen Ring of Bright Water? Its one of my favorites and has adorable otter and dog playing scenes in it.

I assume you're my pal until you let me know otherwise.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya.

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Thursday, April 19, 2012 11:53 AM

MINCINGBEAST

Beasts do not smile; they may display a ghastly rictus.

Is that the Otter tank from the Monterey aquarium? The Beast-ette and I were there not very long ago. We spent roughly 2 hours with the otters. Our rather adult presence ensured that several children were unable to get a good look at the otters at play. Devil take the children.

There was one particularly malevolent, yet playful, young otter who was trying to wrestle and/or murder all of her peers. I admired her.

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Thursday, April 19, 2012 12:09 PM

PENGUIN

What!?!?! No Penguins?!?!?

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Friday, April 20, 2012 7:32 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Yeah, Raptor, I know one of the few things you and I share is our love of animals! I had to watch the damned things a couple of times each myself...sigh.

Mincing, I dunno which video you're referring, but I kinda doubt it. All the videos I put up were of river otters, not sea otters, and I've never seen river otters at Monterey Aquarium--they have a tank of SEA otters--ONLY non-rehabable ones, since Monterey Aquarium is devoted to local wildlife and maintains nothing but animals which can't be returned to the wild. We worked in conjunction with them occasionally at Marine Mammal Center.

Riona, hold onto your hat, you hit a soft spot: I haven't only seen "Ring", I've read Maxwell's books. You should sample them some time...he writes well, and especially well about otters. He also wrote two sequels, "The Rocks Remain" and "Raven Meet Thy Brother", and they're considered the "Ring of Bright Water Trilogy". You'd probably also love his accounts of his life in Sandaig, Scotland (which he called Camusfearna in his books), given your love of things in that area of the world. He also wrote "Harpoon At A Venture" before Ring, and it was also a best seller, but before Sandaig. There is, by the way, another great movie about otters, "Season of the Otter" about Yellowstone's river otters.

The title of Ring was from a poem by Kathleen Raine (a pretty famous poetess in her own right at the time), a friend who considered him the "love of her life". Unfortunately he was pretty much an isolationist, mostly given to occasional gay flings, and only had one intense, if platonic, heterosexual affair with her. On one of her visits, he had to go on a business trip and left Mij at home with her; she lost track of him and he was killed by a roadmender the same afternoon (sorry), ending their friendship.

Interestingly, Mij was brought by him from Iraq, and was found to be a sub-species of the smooth-coated otters that inhabited that area (now considered extinct from loss of habitat), so it was named after him: Lutrogale perspicillata maxwelli, or 'Maxwell's Otter'! I always got a kick out of that. His relationship with Mij wasn't one of human/pet, and some even called it a love affair: "witnesses speak of Maxwell rolling about on the floor with Mij, man mewing rhapsodically to otter." He and Mij were only together for one Summer in Sandaig.

Here's your trivia for the day (don't read it if it'll depress you): Gavin Maxwell was bipolar and his grandfather was the Duke of Northumberland. He had two otters after Mij (Edal and Teko), but they turned on him, and his friends, and his life after losing his beloved Mij went downhill, despite Ring selling two million copies and making him the biggest-selling author in the world at the time. He had a brief, unsuccessful marriage, was semi-crippled in a car accident, his book's fame brought tourists to Sandaig (which ruined it's once-splendid isolation) and it burned down in '68; he died of cancer a few months later. He DID, however, live long enough to see the success of "Ring", thank goodness. Lastly, the stars of Ring were Bill Travers and Virginia Mackenna, who also starred in Born Free.

Well, you DID ask, and Ring is close to my heart...it was a book and a film I'll never forget, mostly because it STARTED my love affair with river otters. Sea otters, no, but river otters...sigh...when I was young, it was my dream to have a pair of wolves and enough land to keep them on, as well as an otter and an "Aquarius" pool for him to play in. Closest I'll ever come is having met the pet otters and having two huskies...

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Sunday, April 22, 2012 7:14 PM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht

I tried the book and didn't really enjoy it. But I love the movie. My favorite, no surprise, is the scene with the old lighthouse keeper who can't speak English, only can speak Gaelic, yum! Too bad he's old, if he were younger I'd have a HUGE crush. I guess he can be an oldman crush, kind of like Patrick Stewart aka Taptain Pitard (when lil' bro was 4 he couldn't pronounce his C sounds, they came out like Ts so I still say Taptain Pitard) :)

Its a beautiful movie and I've loved it since I was in high school, I have a copy at home, my grandma has it too and that's where I first saw it was at her house, she has fun movies that are hard to find anywhere else. That otter is sooooooo cute! I like it when he finds a lady otter and they waddle off together, and watching him play with the dog is really cute.

I assume you're my pal until you let me know otherwise.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya.

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