When the camera finally centers on an otter, you can see a little white fish in her mouth. Then the smaller otter swims by and the adult flicks her head and the little otter winds up with the fish in its mouth.

As far as I have seen, the challenge the mother faces at this time in her pups' development, is to get them to apply the basic swimming skills that they've learned by playing to what they need to do in order to survive, catch fish. They now can swim in a straight line and they are masters at the art of chasing each other in tight swirling circles. In the next clip you can see some pups back sliding a bit, and playing when they should be fishing. I think the mother swims in to try to inspire them to the business at hand: catching fish.

The lesson of this clip seems to be that the swirling otters don't catch a fish but the steady pup foraging along the edge of the rocks gets a handsome fish. However, when the mother swims in at the end, I don't think she is too scolding to the swirlers because that swirling forms the basis of the most successful way otters fish: as a cooperating group.

The next clip begins with an otter diving, and then swimming after something and coming up empty mouthed. I assume it was chasing a fish, and roughly down the deepest channel of the pond, perhaps a good three feet deep. Next the clip shows a more successful fishing technique: a group of otters circling and diving near the pond vegetation. They have learned to stop chasing each other, and instead churn the water together and catch the fish fleeing for safety. If they muddy the waters, that's no problem. Otters have whiskers that can sense the fish even when they might not be able to see them. Of course, at the end of the clip you can see how one pup adjusts to bad luck. It tries to steal a fish. And it looks to me like the third otter came up with the prize!

Turn the page: page16

Here is a rough guide to the video clips in the video book.