Otter surprise: Family discovers baby critter in their yard

A Julington Creek family got a little surprise this week when they found their puppy playing with a baby otter in the yard.

The family called Melanie Stage, head of animal rescue organization HAWKE, or the Humane Association of Wildlife Care and Education, and Stage has been busy taking care of her new addition.

"She's labor-intensive," Stage said of the 1-month-old otter. "I have to feed her formula every three hours. Her baby teeth are just breaking through."

Baby otters stay in their mothers' dens for the first few months, but this one must have been abandoned. The animals begin having babies in February, and motherless baby otters are an unfortunate but common problem in St. Johns County, Stage said.

"Otters can be found everywhere in suburban areas," she said. "With development in the county, mothers are often hit by cars and then their babies have to crawl out of their dens. Sometimes dogs find them and pull them out."

Both parents usually stay with their baby otter for the first year, and Stage will try to keep this one until late summer. But the otter is expensive.

"We don't receive state or federal funding and we're not getting the donations we used to," Stage said of HAWKE. "I don't even know how we're going to hang in there."

Stage said formula and other expenses for the otter total $150 a week. Just like humans, the infant otter has to be fed every couple of hours.

Stage is keeping the otter in an incubator for warmth in an effort to mimic its mother's den. It can barely crawl now, but in a few months it will start swimming and eventually eat tadpoles, fish and frogs.

And despite her shrinking funds, Stage will take care of the otter for as long as she can.

"We'll keep it until it can defend itself and it's able to catch prey," she said. "It's just going to be a lot of expense and time."