Diane is one of those people whom you meet, look at and instantly wish you could multiply somehow, to spread all that knowledge and caring around for awhile longer. There's no better way to learn an animal than to live with it, and Diane has been mama to multitudes of orphaned and kidnapped giant otter cubs. Through them, she's come to know the animal as no one else on the planet does. Upon arriving at Karanambu, we were taken down to the banks of the Rupununi to meet two of Diane's charges, who were swimming freely in the river under the eye of an Amerindian attendant .
I was confused upon seeing my first semi-wild otter in South America. But for some eye and nose issues, it looked very much like our North American river otter (Lutra canadensis). If this was a giant otter, it must be a baby. I stared and stared, trying to reconcile what I was seeing with what I had been expecting to see. It was a gorgeous little thing.
As became abundantly clear in just a few moments, this was not a giant Amazon otter, but a Neotropical river otter, Lontra longicaudus. A life mammal, to be sure, and endangered (CITES Appendix 1). It was out of habitat here in this silty, slow-moving river, having been brought to Diane as a purported giant otter from an unknown locale. Neotropical river otters inhabit clearer, faster-flowing streams than do giant Amazonian otters. Nevertheless, Diane accepted it and raised it, and it has given vital companionship to the star of the show and central focus of Diane's life work.
First peek of the giant Amazon otter, Pteronura b. brasiliensis:
Hello!
Nah, nothing otterlike about this dog.
to be continued...
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