Everybody has a favorite animal to visit at the zoo.  The otters are always a lot of fun, and now, there are more of them at the Dickerson Park Zoo.

Sonya Kullmann - We're live at the zoo this morning and Melinda Arnold joins us to tell us about some new additions to the zoo family. I know otters are real crowd pleasers.

Melinda - The otters are always a favorite and I think that's because our female in particular is very people oriented. So when guests come up to the window, she is often right there, looking at the kids eye to eye.  But in March, she had a litter of pups.  She had two, a male and a female.  And for the first few months, they were not able to be seen by the public because she was busy taking care of them.  She had a couple of different dens. One in the building and one in the yard when they got a little bigger.  Now they're big enough they're swimming right along with her, playing in the water, chasing after rocks.  Sometimes our zookeepers will throw food into the water so they have to dive to retrieve their food.  They're a lot of fun to watch.

Rob Evans - Our babies were both born this spring, but they were like 6 pounds, 7 pounds.  How big were these otter pups?

Melinda - They would fit in the palm of your hand.  They looked like littlel sausages, dark brown.  Their eyes don't open for the first month.  And really, they're probably 2 1/2 - 3 months before you see much activity at all out of them with mom out in the yard.

Sonya - Did the zoo make the decision to keep them off display, or was that up to mom?

Melinda - That's actually mom's decision because they were so small.  She chose to have her den inside where they were protected from all of the outside elements.  And then later, she created a den outside in the yard.  This is just like it would be in the wild.  They would be in the den for 2 1/2 - 3 months and then slowly she would bring them out for activity.  By 3 - 3 1/2 months they would be getting into the water for swimming lessons.  And until they are big enough to swim on their own, mom would carry them on her back.

Rob - I understand there's a new way for people to follow the zoo as well, Melinda?

Melinda - I know you guys there at the station are really wired in to Facebook and Twitter and a lot of people in our community are as well.  We wanted to let everyone know that we do have a fan page for Dickerson Park Zoo on Facebook and we're also on Twitter.  
And these are great ways to catch little updates about the zoo.  Sometimes we tweet about funny things we saw at the zoo or animals that may be doing something that day.  You can access that from our home page, which is dickersonparkzoo.org.  or call us at 417-864-1800.