The Brockville Aquatarium is now home to three locally-born otter pups.

“Mayble, one of our females, gave birth to three pups, so we now have eight wonderful otters living in our habitat,” Liz Harder, an animal husbandry curator at the Auqutarium, told Global News.

The Aquatarium has been the home to five North American river otters that were rescued from the U.S. Harder said they were considered to be “nuisance rescues.”

“They were legally trapped in the state of Louisiana,” she said. “We don’t know the exact circumstances, but instead of being destroyed as many animals would be that are trapped, they went into a different stream where they can be adopted.”

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The otter pups are drawing crowds at the Aquatarium, but they are also receiving special attention from their mother.

Harder said they are currently five months old and will be reliant on their mother from anywhere between eight months and one year.

“She’s still very attentive to them,” Harder said. “She doesn’t like to be away from them for very long, so when they go out in the habitat, they will start to spread out a bit more, but then occasionally you’ll hear her make some noise, they’ll squeak and they’ll all come back together.”

But she said the pups are already starting to figure out things on their own.

“They’ve already learned that if I put my nose on the ball that I’ll get a treat,” she said.

While the otters are a fun sight for those visiting the Aquatarium, Harder said they’re also an extremely important species for waterways.

“Scientists will actually use sightings of otters in various waterways to gauge the health of the waterways because they are very particular animals and don’t want to live in water that is polluted or dirty,” she said.

The otter pups will be at the Aquatarium for seven more months before being re-homed.

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