International Giant Otter Studbook Husbandry and Management

used alone below, it also implies "abnormal handling".) Moderate disturbances caused an
abnormally increased amount of nervousness, abuse, and handling (compared to the reactions of
other giant otters). As well, when the old mother required oral medication for possible infection
from an aborted decomposed fetus, the primary giant otter keeper quickly and quietly entered
the indoor building to access the feed den. The keeper then handed each parent one fish and
immediately left the area in the same way he entered. Extreme cub abuse and excessive
handling and nervousness resulted nearly immediately after, and because of, the disturbance.
(Note: antibiotics were necessary and they had to be offered hidden in a fish. Each otter had to
be handed a fish to ensure that the correct otter received the medication. The medication
continued for 5 days and it was administered one time per day.)
Disturbance caused the parents to become very abnormal in their behavior. Observed, with
predictable consistency and obvious correlation, were both parents abusing their cubs,
abnormally handling them, and/or becoming abnormally nervous as a direct result of even minor
human disturbances. Both the mother and father abused their cubs with equal severity and
frequency. They also would not lie still long enough so that the cubs could nurse or in rare
cases the mother would leave the cubs unattended for an abnormal length of time. During the
aforementioned times, the cubs had little or no chance to nurse. All of these factors had
negative consequences on the cubs’ well-being. When the parents could control familiar events
themselves (i.e. they could control their own activities) it was not a disturbance, but events over
which they had no control (i.e. human disturbances) caused disturbance and consequential
nervousness and cub abuse/neglect.
The greater the disturbance, the longer and/or more severe the abnormal behaviors (i.e.
abnormal abuse, handling, and nervousness) became. These behaviors occurred from
immediately to 34 minutes (averaging 9 minutes) after the disturbance occurred and they
continued either intermittently or continually during a time period of 2 minutes to 71 minutes
(averaging 24 minutes) in length. These behaviors ranged from mild to highly
excessive/extreme and they occurred 3-6 times/day (averaging 4 times/day) over a 7-day period
(until the cubs died or were pulled for handrearing). A large percentage of these periods
accounted for, occurred in direct correlation with and as a result of the disturbances created
when the primary keeper fed and medicated the otters. (The otters were fed 3 to 4 times per
day.) Some of the behaviors that the parents themselves regularly carried out before parturition,
seemed to disturb them after parturition. It seemed that these formerly familiar behaviors
became “novel” to them after parturition. Mild, to at worst even moderate, abnormal behaviors
resulted when these seemingly “novel” behaviors were performed after parturition. After the
parents repeated and expanded these behaviors, they became comfortable/familiar with them,
they no longer disturbed themselves, and the cubs were treated well. For example, when the
mother first left the nestbox after parturition (just after a minor human disturbance occurred
about 4 hours after parturition), this caused a significant disturbance and resulted in abuse.
Future excursions (without concurrent human disturbances), such as movement/exploration to
exhibit areas increasingly more remote from the nestbox containing the cubs, also disturbed the
otters and resulted in abuse. The parents although, over time, eventually played, dug, groomed,
and exercised and they did not become disturbed or abuse the cubs as a result after these
outings. On these outings, the parents could carry out the full extent of their grooming, digging,
playing and exercising activities on land and this helped them to relax, reduce their stress, and
entertain them.
It is important to note the following points. These parents did not abuse their cubs and treated
them normally when disturbances did not occur. Both the mother and the father were quite
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