Otter Know Better than anthropomorphism

I was amused to read the back page of the Daily Telegraph this week. I don't usually do this, the weather maps and related information look rather intimidating, but I do pick it up sometimes when abroad on holiday. This happens usually after ten days of a self-proclaimed and wife-enforced no-news policy. I then give up and stand alarmingly close to Brits on holiday in the hope of reading over their shoulders that the weather is miraculously better in Ireland than it is in Spain.

But, as Ronnie Corbett regularly says, I digress.

Back to the back page of the Telegraph.

Ignoring "the producer", and picking up the paper in the office, I allowed myself to be charmed by the "Nature Notes", something I suspect I'm far too removed from the landed set to read.

"Young otter climbing trees is 'rebelling'" it informed me solemnly. It appears that staff at Slimbridge Wetland Centre in Gloucestershire have been surprised to see a young female otter regularly scrambling up the branches of a nearby tree.

Given that otters do not usually climb trees - at any rate, not in Gloucestershire, they think she may have been "'flexing her teenage muscles' and trying to prove herself."

"'It's the otter equivalent of stomping upstairs to your room and slamming the door.' said Sally Munro, a spokesman for the centre."

Now I like this story. I like the idea of a grumpy otter shoving one in the direction of Mum and Dad, who, bewildered at the stroppy behaviour of their offspring, shrug their shoulders in resignation and get on with trying to catch some fish to feed her little brother.

But in truth, I can't really say I believe this is what is going on. I spent a traumatic afternoon last weekend helping my 12 year old daughter write a poem about the seasons with an example of anthropomorphism in the last line of every verse. I strongly suspect there's an unhealthy dose of it - anthropomorphism that is - going on here. Our young female otter, manifestly not human, is being endowed with human characteristics and motives by the Slimbridge staff.

Otters, I believe, are not especially human. There is no way we can possibly know that one is having a fit of teenage rebellion. But it's fun to imagine, I'll give you that.

Having said all that. Belfast Zoo once reported the escape of a teenage monkey which hadn't been getting on with its Dad. I didn't really mind the anthropomorphism. What I loved about that story was that after a few days of freedom to roam anywhere he wanted in North Belfast, the monkey reappeared at the zoo gates one morning, wanting back in.

Well North Belfast always was a difficult place for Primates.