Open Post: Hosted By A Koi-Eating Otter On The Run
If you live in Vancouver and own koi, you need to bring them inside from your backyard water feature to a safety tank in your locked house. There’s a koi-hungry otter on the loose and he’s already killed seven!
HuffPo reports that park officials from the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden in Vancouver have issued a lookout for an otter that’s depleted one of their ponds.
“As of today, seven of our adult koi have been killed,” said a Saturday statement from the garden. “They are an integral part of the Garden family and our cultural heritage, and we do not take their loss lightly.”
As well they shouldn’t – koi are expensive! The ones at the park are also (or, rather, were) decades-old. The otter has reportedly been continuing to lurk around the park while cleverly eating the bait out of the humane traps that they’ve been setting for him.
The plan is to relocate the otter to the nearby Fraser Valley ― something parks director Howard Normann believes will be beneficial not only to the koi, but to the otter.
“This is for the best chance for the life of this otter, lots of food, lots of friends,” he told CTV News.
The parks are fighting a losing battle, though. People are going to side with the otter despite him being a fish killer. Humanity likes cute and cuddly things more than wet, scaly ones. You see a lot more stuffed animal otters as opposed to stuffed animal koi. We’re just shallow. WON’T SOMEONE THINK OF THE KOI?!?
The search continues for an elusive otter that has eaten at least seven treasured koi fish at the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden in Vancouver. #TheMoment pic.twitter.com/xzUIJU1eVI
— CBC News: The National (@CBCTheNational) November 23, 2018
Pic: Twitter