Baby animals are back to save our lockdown.
There’s a lockdown baby boom a-happening across London, and we aren’t talking about the humans. In the first lockdown, we saw the arrival of cute baby otters at ZSL London Zoo, and baby ravens born at the Tower of London, and lockdown 3 is proving equally – ahem – fertile. Just before Christmas, four very cute baby otters were born at Battersea Park Children’s Zoo, and last week the first pictures arrived. And predictably, they are TOO. DARN. CUTE! [Featured image: @batterseazoo]
First-time parents Robin and Little John welcomed the quadruplets back in mid-December, who all sport 2020-related names. Tia, Bubble, Rishi, and Witty are Asian short-clawed otters, a species that’s growing increasingly vulnerable to extinction, making their successful breeding a big success.
Now eight weeks old, the latest updates from Battersea Park Children’s Zoo reveal that the baby otters haven’t left their indoor enclose yet, but that they are starting to try solid food. Per the zoo, “over the next few weeks we expect to see them venture outside with their cubs and begin teaching them how to swim to search for their food and play.”
We obviously won’t be able to pay a visit to the otters in the near future, but you can be sure they’ll be a popular family once lockdown lifts and the zoo reopens to the public. In the meantime, you can donate to the Battersea Park Children’s Zoo fundraiser here, which will help the zoo cover their daily running costs and support their conservation and education projects. Then, I promise you can go back to fussing over the adorable baby otter pics…