CUTE ALERT: Otter rescued by SRP workers in a canal
This may be the cutest thing you'll see all day: a baby otter was rescued from a Phoenix canal, and now, one of the Salt River Project (SRP) workers who plucked it from the water is speaking out.
The otter was discovered in the Arizona Canal last month, northeast of Mesa and just south of the Granite Reef Dam. It's believed the otter lived in the dam with its family, and was abandoned in the canal.
Craig Boggs and two other SRP workers were in the right place, at the right time, when they rescued the baby otter.
"Little thing, he was bobbing up and down, and going underwater and coming back up and he was exhausted," said Boggs. "He was just on his last breath, I think, because he as just going underwater and coming up, and he was squawking for his mom and everything. We managed to get it out and when we pulled it up onto the bank and laid it down, that thing just laid there."
The otter was unable to climb up the steps that horses and other animals use to get out of the water, if they fall in, and the otter was also starving, dehydrated, and infested with fleas. Game and Fish nursed it back to health, and the otter is now at the "Out of Africa Wildlife Park" in Camp Verde.