Here’s how you can help name a new otter at the Loveland Living Planet Aquarium
DRAPER, Utah (ABC4) — There’s a new face at the Loveland Living Planet Aquarium — and he’s otterly adorable!
The aquarium’s newest resident is a male Asian small-clawed otter, and he needs your help finding a name.
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The aquarium is asking the public to submit their ideas online. All who participate will be entered to win aquarium passes and a penguin encounter, courtesy of Ford.
As the top three names are selected, public voting will begin Monday, April 29. Voting will take place online and in-person until Saturday, May 11, during the aquarium’s Asian American Pacific Islander Festival.
(Courtesy Loveland Living Planet Aquarium) (Courtesy Loveland Living Planet Aquarium) (Courtesy Loveland Living Planet Aquarium) (Courtesy Loveland Living Planet Aquarium) (Courtesy Loveland Living Planet Aquarium) (Courtesy Loveland Living Planet Aquarium)
The aquarium announced the new otter’s arrival on Facebook, saying that he was one of two pups born in Ocean Park Hong Kong in 2020 to parents Si and Fun, who were confiscated by the Hong Kong Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department and relocated to Ocean Park in 2018.
He now comes to Utah from the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher, where he has been cared for since January 2024.
This new otter will take turns in a public-facing habitat with the aquarium’s two other Asian small-clawed otters, Honey and Simon.
In the post, the aquarium said that “Loveland Living Planet Aquarium, NCAFF, and Ocean Park are accredited through the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA), meeting the highest standards in animal care and welfare.”
The aquarium said that Asian small-clawed otters are part of the nearly 300 programs within the AZA Species Survival Plan Program, which sets “population targets and breeding guidelines to maintain a genetically diverse, demographically varied, and biologically sustainable population.”
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