River Otters

Hey you guys! I think I should just say that im on here when im on here. Because I keep saying I will come on again, then don't go through with it. But, hopefully, since I have started Zoology, I will have some more posts on here!

Today, as you see in the title, is the RIVER OTTER

Not as good as the Sea Otter in my opinion, but still adorable! So, what is a River Otter you may ask? Well, this is what it looks like:

Is it not adorable?!? They are so cute! 

 

Now, onto some info on this cutie! River Otters love to have fun! They Wrestle, play tag, and slide down muddy or snowy riverbanks together. They also express themselves vocally with chirps, whistles, growls, and screams. Their pelts are waterproof, and allows them to regulate their temperatures. They can also hold their breath underwater for about eight minutes by being able to shut their nostrils and ears tightly so that way no water can get in. River Otters usually eat fish, but sometimes they just eat what's easiest to find, like frogs, crustaceans, insects, and such. River Otters live usually where it is wet, obviously, so usually you can find them in streams, rivers, lakes, wetlands, and along marine coasts. They really just try to live somewhere where they can get to high quality water, with an abundant food supply. Usually in a litter, there is 2-3 pups, which are born blind, but are fully covered with fur. They don't leave the den-which is usually a hollow log or beaver den- until they are 10-12 weeks old, then the mother will start teaching them how to swim, dive, and hunt until they are about 6 months old.

And that is some information on the River Otter! Except one more thing, if you are a mega animal lover you should know, that even though in the past River Otters almost went extinct when there was a bunch of hunters trying to kill them for their fur, River Otters are all better now, and not even endangered! So yay! That's all for today, but I'm thinking sometime soon to do one on a type of fox or wolf... what do you guys think? Hopefully I will remember because I forgot how fun this is.

BYEEEEEEEEE 

Hunting animals for sport (Cont.)

Ok, so for school I had to write a persuasive paper, and of course I decided to have it be something about animals. I knew I put some things on this blog, and I found my old post about hunting animals for sport. I decided to have my paper be about that. And so I looked up more detailed info about it. So, I decided to put it on here! I hope you guys enjoy a more detailed description of hunting animals, and about how its bad and such.
Here it is:


When humans first started hunting animals it was to put food on the table and so that they could have warm clothes during the harsh winters in Antartica. But it slowly started to become a pastime and a sport to hunt poor, helpless, animals just for the fun of it.

These days, hunters go out and kill animals not for food or for clothing but just for the fun of killing the animal. Because of this, many animals have gone extinct due to the hunters form of recreation. Examples are the Great Auk and the Tasmanian Tiger.

Many of the animals die slowly and painfully by how the hunters just injure them very badly. Some hunters say that hunting needs to happen because some of the animals are over-populated and need to be smaller. But, the majority of species that are hunted - waterfowl, upland birds, mourning doves, squirrels, rabbits, crows, coyotes, etc.- do not require population control. It's just shooting at living targets for the fun of it and inflicting trauma onto helpless animals.

If hunters didn't kill so many animals, some people think that some animal groups would get too over-populated. However, the way nature and wildlife work, that would not happen because other preditors would eat the animals that are getting killed by hunters which would keep forests and other places balanced.

100 million animals are reported killed by hunters each year and hunting also disrupts migrations and family units. Wolves live in close-knit familys and count on each other and hunters going out and killing even one of them can devistate the entire group. Also, the animals that are being killed, other creatures count on them for food. When those animals get killed off, eventually the other animal that fed off of them won't be able to find its main source of food, and it will eventually die too.

Hunting can hurt other people too. There has been reports of hunting accidents where a hunter has shot a friend he was with. There has been thousands of injurys from hunting reported in the U.S. every year and that only includes accidents that humans caused. Killing an animal just so that you can have a "trophy" to hang on your wall is not a good reason to go out killing healthy animals and disrupting the ecosystem.



If you read all of that, congrats! XD I hope to be writing more on here during the summer, and in the fall since I am able to do zoology for school! So I should have more info about more animals, or I will just share what I learned about! See ya guys soon!