On October 24, the Oregon Zoo shared a video of three rescued sea otters swimming, splashing, and tossing pumpkins into hoops.
The three sea otters, Juno, Lincoln, and Uni Sushi, regularly play basketball in their Steller Cove habitat — and the rubber ball they traditionally play with is swapped out for pumpkins around Halloween.
“Positive-reinforcement training like the sea otters’ basketball routine plays a critical role in animal well-being, and using novel items like mini pumpkins helps keep it even more interesting,” the Oregon Zoo wrote in the video’s caption. “Ottermatic all stars!”
“This must be one of the happiest jobs to have in the world,” one YouTube user commented.
One otter, Juno, is especially drawn to the activity. According to zookeepers, she “dribbles” her ball by swimming with it before she goes in for the slam dunk.
“Juno loves to play basketball,” Nicole Nicassio-Hiskey, the zoo’s senior marine life keeper, said in a press release. “She gets so excited whenever we bring the ball out for her training sessions. And she’s good too!”
The tradition started years ago, when Oregon Zoo caregivers trained a rescued sea otter, Eddie, to dunk balls through a custom-made hoop mounted to the rock wall of his habitat to exercise his arthritic elbow joints.
“Eddie, nearly 21 years old when he died in 2018, was one of the oldest known sea otters in the world and earned worldwide fame for his dunking skills,” the Oregon Zoo stated on its website.
Sea otters can live an average of 20 years in captivity, compared to 10 to 15 years in the wild.
In December 2018, Uni Sushi was found stranded on a beach near Santa Cruz and was brought to Monterey Bay Aquarium's rescue and care program. Although the program strives to rewild animals whenever possible, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service deemed her non-releasable.
In May 2019, Uni Sushi joined Juno and Lincoln at Oregon Zoo’s Steller Cove. Juno and Lincoln share similar backstories — they were both found as orphaned pups along the California coast in 2013 and 2017, respectively.
In addition to housing and rehabilitating rescue sea otters, the Oregon Zoo works with the Elakha Alliance, a Native tribe-led initiative that spearheads reintroduction efforts along the Oregon coast for the endangered species.
Recently, the Elakha Alliance and the Oregon Coast Aquarium launched a three-year study to survey the seafloor for sea otter reintroduction.
In Washington and Oregon, researchers are using scuba divers and underwater cameras to measure the abundance of sea otter prey, like urchins, crabs, and abalone.
“Sea otters provide powerful benefits to their environment,” Shawn Larson, senior conservation research manager at the Seattle Aquarium, said in a statement. “When otters are present, kelp forests and eelgrass meadows thrive. There is more food for other animals in the system, and the system itself is more resilient to climate change.”
The data will help the conservationists learn whether the coast is clear for formal introduction.
“Understanding the ecology of the Oregon Coast is a really important step in reintroducing them,” said Bacchieri of the Elakha Alliance. “In terms of whether we eventually see sea otters along the coast anytime soon, this is a big deal project.”
Watch Juno, Lincoln, and Uni Sushi meet for the first time:
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Featured Image: Screenshot via @oregonzoo/YouTube
