Otters are cute and adorable-looking creatures. Until they aren’t.
Because, after all, nature is red in tooth and claw, as the British poet Alfred Tennyson famously said.
After otters raided a pond in the grounds of a home in Seletar Hills, killing fish that the family had long taken care of, netizens were not so amused.
Early Wednesday morning (Mar 16), the otters slipped between the bars of the gate, entered the grounds and raided the pond. The home owner shared photos of the assault and the aftermath with Mothership, which reported the slaughter on Mar 17.
The otters are said to have killed a total of 50 giant goldfish and eight koi in the pond. Mothership said that the home owner described the slaughter as the “sheer brutality of Mother Nature,” and added that the family had raised the Tamasabas goldfish and ther koi for the past 13 years.
And while the family has a dog, a 12-year-old Belgian Malinois that used to work with the police force, it was apparently “overwhelmed” by the invaders, and did not make a sound when the otters savaged the fish.
“He could only stand by helplessly as he watched our eight award-winning kois and 50 Tamasabas attacked and left for dead,” the owner told Mothership.
And while she and her family feel the loss of the fish keenly, she does not blame the animals for what they did.
“My sincere hope is for other koi owners to start fencing up their property or at least the area around the koi so that this will not happen to anyone else,” the owner added.
Several netizens labelled the otters a nuisance and these critics weren’t the only ones less inclined to be generous to the animals whose antics have delighted many Singaporeans.
Some got quite jokey about the matter.
Some echoed the owner’s advice to get better fencing to keep otters out.
Others defended the creatures, with some calling for otters’ natural habitat to be better protected so that they don’t have to forage for food in private ponds.
/TISG
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