Five pups, eighty-two grams each: a tiny otter family doubles

Keepers at the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher knew something was happening when chirps started coming from the den on October 19. Inside were five Asian small-clawed otter pups — four males and one female — born to Milli, 8, and Binx, 6, each weighing only about 82 to 91 grams. The pups are healthy, gaining weight and bonding, and their older siblings from the pair's first litter — Nyx, Bohdi and Baloo — have been helping, bringing Milli food and lending a paw with the nest. The litter doubles the aquarium's otter family to ten. Asian small-clawed otters, the smallest otters in the world, are listed as vulnerable in the wild, which makes every healthy litter count.

SDG 15 · Life on land — Mechanism: institutional program