The Godf-otter, Part II: Infamous Vancouver koi boy back for more
Credit to Author: Harrison Mooney| Date: Sun, 03 Nov 2019 02:11:14 +0000
The Chinatown otter is really more of a Pitbull.
Not the much-maligned dog breed, mind you, but the rapper, whose frequent guest appearances often solicit audible groans from rap aficionados. Few phrases in the hip hop world are more dismaying than “feat. Pitbull”, and Saturday’s release from the Vancouver Park Board, which boils down to “Chinese Garden, Part 2 (feat. Otter)”, inspired similar groans. This again?
But the infamous otter, like the career of Pitbull, seems unstoppable. It comes and goes as it pleases, shouting “give me everything tonight.”
The otter made its first appearance in Vancouver’s walled Dr. Sun Yat-sen Classical Chinese Garden about this time last year. On Nov. 18, 2018, staff at the garden first spotted the weaselly creature in the jade green pond while they toured visitors around the site that Saturday afternoon.
Later that day, they realized the otter hadn’t come to the park seeking peace and tranquility, as so many do. Rather, it came for the free food: the prized, gigantic koi that call the water home ever since being donated by the Korean pavilion after Expo 86. Staff soon spotted fish scales on the pond’s bank, and were able to ascertain from the size of the carcass that the otter had already caught and devoured one of the garden’s largest koi.
But to otters, koi are like Lays potato chips. They can’t eat just one. Over the next 48 hours, the otter devoured six fish — a real koi boy, this one.
A river otter that has made it into the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden is devouring the park’s huge koi.
The park board was quick to act, laying out a live trap draped in tarpaulin, a fish oil-soaked carpet and baited with pieces of raw chicken. The goal, of course, was to capture the beast alive and deliver it back to its presumed home in nearby Stanley Park.
But the otter didn’t want to go back to Stanley Park. By then it had developed an affinity for amenities of the city: the all-you-can-eat fish buffet at the garden, as well as the Japanese maples that served as perfect back-scratchers.
Two other traps were added to the site, one right outside the space officials believed to be the otter’s new den, and another near the area where it preferred to dump the koi’s remains. The otter saw all three traps as little more than snack dispensers, snatching the bait —tasty morsels of meat — while evading capture with seeming ease.
“I feel really sad that we are losing our koi but at the same time, the otter is really smart,” said garden spokeswoman Debbie Cheung on Day 3 of last year’s struggle. “I hope that he is full from eating the bait and doesn’t go after our fish.”
No such luck. While Cheung was providing that quote, the otter was snacking on a seventh koi, leaving just seven in the water.
A new plan developed: capture the otter alive, and transport it from his chamber of secrets to a location in the Fraser Valley “that will provide it with the best habitat for a long and healthy life,” the park board said in a news release. One imagines the distance would guarantee the otter never returned as well. It’s one thing to make tracks across Vancouver. It’s another to navigate the Port Mann Bridge.
Whatever the outcome, it had to happen fast.
“It wouldn’t be the same without koi in a classical Chinese garden,” Cheung said. “It’s kind of sad.”
Then-parks director Howard Normann soon heeded the advice of the provincial Ministry of Environment, bringing in a trusted contractor who specialized in safely relocating animals such as otters, minks, raccoons and, according to Normann, “problematic beavers.”
Plan B might have been to shoot the damn thing, but by now, the otter’s saga had captured the attention of both local and international news media, and lines were being drawn. While many mourned the koi, a surprising contingent announced that they were Team Otter. Some people made buttons.
Are you #TeamOtter or #TeamKoi? Last year buttons were made so that folks could show their affiliation.
His death was certain to trigger a backlash. The last thing the Park Board wanted to do was make a martyr out of a murderer, who seemed far cuter if you weren’t privy to the mess he made.
“(Otters are) super cute, but they’ve got vicious little teeth and as you can see (with) the damage they’ve done to these fish, they’re not like a raccoon,” Normann said.
Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Park was closed to the public on Nov. 23 as the specialist went to work, like John Goodman’s exterminator in Arachnophobia.
The otter worked harder, unfortunately. In addition to evading the wildlife relocation expert and his special traps, except to once again make off with the delicious bait, the still-ravenous otter managed to claim his eighth, ninth and 10th victims over a busy second weekend in the park. The specialist, paid $85 an hour for his efforts, left with $1,000 and zero live otters.
Fearing for the remaining four, especially Madonna, a 50-year-old koi that had been at the garden for decades, the park board finally made the decision to lower the water levels in the murky pond and evacuate the surviving quartet.
Staff at Vancouver Chinatown’s Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Garden are pictured on Saturday, Nov. 24, 2018 attempting to capture and relocate one of four remaining koi fish. The garden’s koi have been under attack from a hungry river otter who moved into the garden earlier this month. [PNG Merlin Archive]
Even with assistance from Vancouver Aquarium staffers, the job was difficult and time-consuming, as the humans are far worse at capturing koi than the otter. The first koi took hours to capture and they found just one more. It wasn’t Madonna.
Staff at Vancouver Chinatown’s Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Garden are pictured on Saturday, Nov. 24, 2018 attempting to capture and relocate one of four remaining koi fish. The garden’s koi have been under attack from a hungry river otter who moved into the garden earlier this month. [PNG Merlin Archive]
“Madonna’s no longer with us,” Normann later admitted.
Vincent Kwan, executive director of the garden, shared his dismay over the loss of the elderly, prized koi.
“Everyone in the community knows Madonna,” said Kwan. “I think a lot of people are still trying to digest what has happened and it’s certainly very emotional.”
Certainly, the otter digested it. It was likely among the last things he did during his first extended stay in the garden, before disappearing. By Nov. 28, as staff resigned themselves to the fact that there were no more koi to be found alive, the otter hadn’t been seen in three days.
On Nov. 29, 2018, the facility reopened to the public, now with surveillance cameras placed around the pond in case the otter ever dares show his face around these parts again. But one wondered why he would? With no more ornamental fish to plunder from the once-tranquil pond, let alone any fish at all, as Park Board staffers also removed 344 juvenile carp, there was no reason for him to return.
That is, until Saturday, long after the koi had been restocked, when the Park Board announced the resurgent threat like DJ Khaled announcing himself on a club banger: an otter one.
And with that, we have a sequel on our hands. Call it The Godf-otter Part II, or Break-in 2: Electric Boogaloo.
While there is no confirmation yet that this is the same otter as last year, it seems notable that he arrived at about the same time as last year — just after Halloween, like Mariah Carey’s Christmas music. Moreover, he wasted no time in resuming the same activities: the otter was first spotted on Wednesday morning, Oct. 30, alongside the carcasses of three koi.
Suffice it to say, no one is singing “Welcome back, otter.”
Park Board staff, who faced criticism last time for allowing the otter to run rampant for days before evacuating, like the mayor in Jaws, took immediate action this time to lower the water levels of the pond and remove the fish — six large koi and 74 small koi.
A live animal trap, baited with a fish, sits in the Dr Sun Yat-Sen Garden after an otter was spotted in the gardens, Vancouver, November 02 2019.
The plan is to reopen the garden on Monday when staff are certain that no more koi remain in the pond. But the otter, like the organizers of Vancouver’s 4/20 celebration at Sunset Beach, has never shown much respect for the Vancouver park board. Will he accommodate this timetable, or does he have other plans in mind for this encore performance? How will this end, and will it, like all great sequels, set the stage for a third and final instalment?
The Chinese garden was empty on Saturday afternoon, save for a live animal trap, baited with a fish near the edge of the pond. That, too, was empty.
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