So almost two weeks ago, my friend called me. She has gotten a call from the Dingle Wildlife and Seal Sanctuary to know if anyone in my area could go check on reports of two baby otters stranded on the beach. So off I went with my boyfriend to go check, one of the guys was wily and hid in a hole in a wall so we couldn’t get at him but this guy was by the shoreline, was weak and barely even moved when we approached him and would have been washed away when the tide came in later that evening. We contacted the sanctuary to see what to do and they asked us if we’d mind looking after him for the night and they’d be up early in the morning to collect him and try and get the other guy. Of course we said yes! The poor thing was so shy and barely moving, he was very cold and weak. We took him home and looked after him and I got SO attached! We had him in a big plastic box, complete with a towel and a hot water bottle to help warm him up. We tried to give me some warm water mixed with a pinch of sugar and salt, as instructed by the people at the sanctuary, but he wasn’t particularly interested. We left him alone for a while in the bathroom (with the box he was in in the bath) and after I went to bed, he started ‘meeping’ quite a bit and I felt so bad for him that I took the box into the bed and he stayed beside me while I read. My boyfriend went to go to the bathroom, deciding not to use the the one the otter was in but wanted to check on him first, full expecting me to be lying on the floor next to him. Instead he came into our bedroom and discovered the otter in the box on his side of the bed!! When my boyfriend eventually went to bed we moved Oscar (as my younger siblings decided to call him) back into the bathroom.
We were woken in the morning by him meeping quite a lot. After my boyfriend left to meet the sanctuary people at the beach I decided to go into Oscar as he seemed upset. And indeed he was. He had managed to get out of the box but was still in the bathroom. He had done his business there and seemed to be upset about that. I washed him and the bath with the shower attachment, wrapped him up in a towel and brought him back to bed with me. He had stopped meeping at this stage though unfortunately my boyfriend arrived back shortly after that to take him to the sanctuary people. I was heartbroken, I’d really fallen in love with Oscar! He was so cute and so soft and fluffy. They never found the other otter, he stayed hidden unfortunately. Though Oscar (now called Ollie) is doing great and you can check out some pictures of him on the Dingle Wildlife and Seal Sanctuary Facebook page. But here are some more of my pictures!
Biting his paw
Giving a wave!
