Classroom lesson 路 Wildlife馃嚫馃嚞 Singapore

The otters that took over a city

Whole families of smooth-coated otters now live in the middle of Singapore

A family of smooth-coated otters

Photo 路 Wikimedia Commons

What is it?

Smooth-coated otters are the biggest otters in Asia, about a metre long from nose to tail. They were once rare in Singapore. Today, several whole otter families - called 'romps' - swim, play and hunt right through the middle of the city.

Tell me more

An otter family lives together: mum, dad, this year's pups and last year's pups, all in one group of around 5 to 10. They travel as a pack, splashing in single file along canals and rivers. People in Singapore have given some of the most famous families their own names, like the Bishan family and the Marina family.

Otters can hold their breath for about 4 minutes and dive several metres down to chase fish. They eat lots of fish a day - they have to, because they are so active. After hunting, they pull themselves up onto a sunny patch of grass to rest and 'groom' their fur dry.

Sometimes a whole otter family will decide to cross a busy road. Traffic stops, people pull out phones, and the pups follow the grown-ups across in a wobbly line. The otters take their time. The cars wait. Then everyone moves on.

Singapore is one of the only big cities in the world where wild otters live this comfortably. Scientists think it works because the rivers and ponds were cleaned up over the years and stocked with fish. Once the water was healthy, the otters came back on their own.

In the classroom

Walk your class through this in 15 minutes.

Talk together

Discussion prompts

  1. 01Why might a wild animal like an otter choose to live in a city instead of a quiet forest?
  2. 02What does it tell us when an animal comes back to a place it left long ago?
  3. 03Are there any wild animals where you live? How do people share space with them?
Try this

Classroom activity

Find out one wild animal that lives near your school - a fox, a bird, a squirrel, a hedgehog. Draw it. Write three things it needs to survive (water? a place to hide? food?). Discuss what your school could do to help it.