Tallulah the river otter was rescued as a small pup and hand-raised at the Salmonier Nature Park, an environmental education, wildlife care and research centre at the centre of Newfoundland’s Avalon Peninsula.
Yet, after her testing some of the older infrastructure and an escape and an attack on park staff, her life is now in jeopardy.
Snippets of the tale of Tallulah were revealed in response to an access to information request, in documents posted by the province online earlier this month. They include emails by park staff mentioning the possibility the otter will be euthanized.
CBC was refused any interview with park staff about the otter or recent events at site.
The provincial Department of Forestry, Agriculture and Lands is responsible for the wildlife care program. In an emailed statement, communications staff said Tallulah is in a secure area for now, under constant observation.
“Staff are working to determine the best course of action. We can’t speculate on what the decision might be,” the email said.
As of Thursday, the department said there were “no new updates to provide.”
Veterinarian check-ups for Tallulah included in the publicly released documents show her in good health over the past couple of years. She did have an issue with sucking the end of her tail, attributed to anxiety when left alone too long.
From the documents, it’s not clear where the real troubles started. However, Tallulah is reported to have escaped a holding area — “Alcatraz,” as a staff member called it.
Problems were identified with the otter enclosure. Tallulah was to be moved for a time and the process required live-trapping. During the attempt last fall, she escaped the live trap when it didn’t properly close.
As a staff member would later describe it, she “went for the handlers without hesitation or provocation.”
It was a scene. Boots were bitten, a new pair had to be purchased. A report was made to Occupational Health and Safety, though there’s no report of much beyond the boots.
It seems to have been the last straw. In a June 30 email, as he started searching for a new home for the otter, reaching out to other zoos and reserves, a staff member stated Tallulah has a history of biting her caretakers when given the opportunity.
“Our educational enclosure may not be 100 per cent escape proof, so we are not going to take the chance that the animal escapes and bites a member of the public,” he wrote, in one of his first appeals.
“Would you be interested in this animal for educational display?”
At Zoo de Granby, about an hour drive outside Montreal, the response was otters were not being taken in there. However, there was an offer to help with the search for housing.
A follow-up email came back to the staff member four days later, saying the zoo had reached out to other zoos but there was no interest.
“I will let you know if I hear anything back,” it stated.
That same day, July 7, staff at the Salmonier Nature Park were told two cameras were set up on the otter compound “for security and safety reason.”
Tallulah the river otter was rescued as a small pup and hand-raised at the Salmonier Nature Park, an environmental education, wildlife care and research centre. (Salmonier Nature Park/Facebook)
There are further email exchanges on record from there with the Toronto Zoo, Two Rivers Wildlife Park in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, and Magnetic Hill Zoo in Moncton, N.B.
By July 28, he sent an internal email wherein he mentioned he’d also been sending texts out. There was no good news for nine-year-old Tallulah. At this point, he noted he’d also been told the park’s maintenance crew were not comfortable assisting animal care staff if Tallulah escaped again.
“Most park staff have a fear of this animal escaping its enclosure. The otter’s temporary holding enclosure isn’t 100 per cent secure. The infrastructure is old, especially the sleeping quarters and the feeding hutch, both are made of plywood and could be easily chewed through,” he wrote.
The next of the publicly released communications are follow-up pleas in August for re-housing, sent out by the staff member who had raised Tallulah. She writes to the Toronto Zoo and Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary in Ontario that park management will euthanize the otter if she cannot be re-housed.
“She has never been aggressive toward me or, to my knowledge, toward most of the people who have cared for her,” she writes.
After Tallulah was moved into the display enclosure, she said the otter had less direct human interaction, said the staff member, adding she did bite a caretaker once.
“Several years later, she escaped from her enclosure during park hours. The enclosure was in poor condition at the time, and she approached several visitors but did not hurt anyone,” wrote the staff member.
“She eventually encountered our animal care supervisor, who had not been involved in raising her and was never particularly comfortable around her. Tallulah jumped up on him, he became frightened and turned to knock her down, and she bit him.”
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Tallulah’s troubles in the fall, she went on, were tied to the animal being moved to a temporary enclosure to allow for work on the boardwalk and an otter viewing platform. They were big projects for the park, first established in the 1970s, with the boardwalk first built in the late 1990s.
“In my view, the incidents in her history have occurred in very specific and stressful circumstances, rather than representing a pattern of unprovoked aggression toward people,” the staff member stated.
The Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary said it didn’t have an enclosure for otters to be kept in permanently, writing back “I’m sorry that we aren’t in a position to take Tallulah, but I really hope you are able to find somewhere for her.”
According to the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador website, otters have been known to live 16 years in captivity and 10-20 years in the wild. They are also, “usually one of the favourites at the park.”
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