A jogger is attacked by several otters and seriously injured. The animals, which are considered peaceful, display unusual behavior.
Sabah – Otters are generally peaceful and intelligent wild animals that also have a charming cute appearance. It is hard to believe that such an animal could injure a person so badly that they would have to be hospitalized. But that is exactly what happened recently in a park in Malaysia. A jogger was the victim of this unexpected attack, which apparently had a specific reason.
Jogger is so badly injured by a group of otters that she has to go to hospital
Otters are found almost worldwide, with a few exceptions. These strictly protected species in Germany feeds mainly on fish and is predominantly nocturnal. Nevertheless, a tragic incident occurred on Wednesday morning (September 11) in the Tanjung Aru Recreation Park in Sabah, Malaysia. A group of eight otters attacked a jogger and injured her so badly that she had to be treated in a hospital, according to, among others, ViralPress and the New York Post reported.
Photos in the media show a bloodied woman sitting on a curb. She suffered bite and abrasions on her head and arms. A video documents how the otter group escapes after the attack. “Preliminary investigations revealed that a group of otters had entered the recreation center to Pond of the park to search for food,” Roland Oliver Niun, director of the Sabah Wildlife Department, told ViralPress.
Attacks by otters on humans are rare, but they do happen
According to Niun, there is a population of wild otters nearby and they have been spotted in the park before, but such an incident has never occurred before. “There is indeed a population of wild otters near the park and we also observe a change in the animals’ behavior when the community feeds them,” he says.
Although attacks by otters on humans are rare, they do occur occasionally – even in Germany. For example, in 2012 a cleaner was seriously injured by a giant otter that had escaped from its enclosure in Hamburg’s Hagenbeck Zoo. In 2023, an otter attacked three women during a boat trip on the Jefferson River in the US state of Montana. The Montana Department of Fisheries, Wildlife and Parks told the broadcaster at the time CNNthat otters are consistently protective of their young and their food. In Alaska, there was a moving incident in which passersby rescued an otter pup after an orca killed its mother. (mt)
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