Peter's Podcast

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Want to know more about Raising Sancho? Check out the latest Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom podcast with wildlife expert and former co-host Peter Gros. A link between the classic series with Marlin Perkins and the new Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom on Animal Planet, Peter Gros is a licensed animal presenter and an authority on wildlife species of all shapes and sizes.

We'll post Peter's audio podcast soon, but in the meantime you can read the transcript below.

Will Johnson: Hello, I'm Will Johnson for Discovery Channel Radio. I'm here with wildlife expert Peter Gros, and today we'll be discussing the latest episode of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, Raising Sancho, premiering Sunday, April 8, at 7 p.m. ET/PT on Animal Planet. Hello Peter.
Peter Gros: Hi Will, great to talk to you again.

Will Johnson: What do you think about this new special?
Peter Gros: Oh, I think it's an amazing show. It's really an extraordinary insight into the lives of giant otters in the wild as they've never, ever been seen before.

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Will Johnson: Can you describe for us what a giant otter looks like?
Peter Gros: Well, they're pretty amazing looking little miniature, high-speed submarines. They're about six feet long, very slender. They've got very silky brown fur with arbitrary white patches along their chest. They're perfectly designed for maneuverability underwater, and they get to be as much as 70 pounds. So they're just amazing animals.

Will Johnson: Where do giant otters live Peter? What are their homes like?
Peter Gros: They live in the swampy areas of southwest Brazil in an area called the Pantanal, which is one of the world's largest wetland areas. It's about half the size of Texas, and around October every year it becomes flooded. Giant otters spend most of their lives fishing in these huge, flooded areas amongst 2,000 other species of plants and animals that inhabit the Pantanal.

Will Johnson: Are giant otters solitary or do they live in families?
Peter Gros: Oh, they're very much a family animal. They live in large family groups with one dominant male who acts as the leader and keeps the others in line. They hunt together in a group and he teaches them. They have a very intricate communication system with a variety of snorts and screams and whistles that they all have to learn to communicate.

Will Johnson: What do they eat?
Peter Gros: Well primarily they eat fish. It's amazing the footage that is shot as they're fishing, which shows clearly what they do that is so unique. They work together in a family unit to catch piranha, and they all work together to herd them so they're easy to catch.

Will Johnson: Do they have any natural predators?
Peter Gros: Unfortunately, their nice silky fur is very popular with locals in terms of hunting and trapping to sell the furs. But natural predators I would say would be large snakes, constrictors, and sometimes crocodilians will eat them.

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Will Johnson: So tell us about Sancho. Just how adorable is this little guy?
Peter Gros: Oh, he's an amazing animal. The first time you see him he's just a few weeks old, and you fall in love with him. You tend to anthropomorphize and think of him as a puppy or a pet, the sort of animal that you'd never like to see reintroduced to the wild, but this wonderful Brazilian veterinarian, Carolina Vargas, does a great job getting up at 5 o'clock every morning, bottle-raising him, and reintroducing him, and teaching him to become a wild otter again.

Will Johnson: What was your impression of researcher Caroline Vargas and her methods?
Peter Gros: Well I think she's one of the most devoted researchers that I've ever seen. She spent hours and hours in the water along with predators that live in the water doing whatever it took to reintroduce this young otter, and then she had to face the tough decision of whether or not to reintroduce Sancho back to the wild.

Will Johnson: What were some of the biggest obstacles facing Sancho's eventual return to the wild?
Peter Gros: One would, since he had to be bottle-raised would he be too imprinted on people? He was very bonded to Carolina. And another was to be sure he was going to be enough of a wild otter to make it in the wild again. It was a tough decision. There are predators in the wild, and other otters don't readily accept strangers. They're very territorial and actually have been known to kill foreign otters. So that was a concern as well, not to mention crocodilians that tend to eat them when they're very small.

Will Johnson: It must have been tough for Caroline to release Sancho into the wild after they'd gotten so close.
Peter Gros: Oh absolutely. I can't imagine what that would've been like, weighing the pros and cons. But on the other hand what kind of a life would an otter have that was afraid of the water? This one was hand-raised on land in the beginning and was absolutely afraid to go in the water. So she had to teach Sancho to swim in the water, to evade predators and to catch fish. She actually taught him to catch fish. There are these wonderful photographs of the otter diving in a muddy, water-filled kiddy pool where Carolina's teaching him to fish. Then eventually, Carolina plays fetch with Sancho by tossing fish back into the river where the otter will hopefully someday live.

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Will Johnson: Have you had any personal interactions with otters?
Peter Gros: I have, and otters are amazingly intelligent animals to work with. I had the good fortune of working with the Monterey Bay Aquarium with the otters that had been caught in the Exxon Valdez spill and then were sent to the aquarium where they were cleaned up and brought back to good health and then released in the ocean in front of the aquarium. I was fortunate enough to work with the researchers as they took them out in front of the aquarium and taught them to dive, taught them to retrieve abalone again, taught them basically to become wild otters again and hopefully they would readjust to the other otters that live out there in the cove just off the coast of Monterey, California. So it was a very exciting thing to do, and having seen this show I can realize just what an amazing researcher that Carolina Vargas had to be, and the patience she had to have, to take her otters that one step further to where they were actually able to go out and mingle and hunt and make it on their own in that very competitive area in the Pantanal.

Will Johnson: Are giant otters endangered? Should we be concerned about them?
Peter Gros: Absolutely. They're amazing animals, they're a very important part of the circle of life in nature, and they should be protected. And I think the more we protect them, the better off we're all going to be.

Will Johnson: The show is called Raising Sancho. Why should people tune in for this one Peter?
Peter Gros: Well I think it's one of the most magnificently filmed underwater bits of photography I've ever seen. I've never seen otters filmed so well. It's some of the best underwater footage I think I've ever seen. It's a wonderful sort of aheartwrenching show of what it takes to hand-raise a young animal and release it back into the wild again through the devotion of this wonderful research, Carolina Vargas. So I encourage everyone to watch it Sunday, April 8, at 7 p.m. ET/PT on Animal Planet.

Will Johnson: Could you give us a quick preview before we sign off? What's one of your favorite scenes?
Peter Gros: Oh, I think my favorite scene is the young otter swimming in the water clinging to the back of his best friend, Carolina. You see this cross-species relationship between a human and an otter as the otter is learning what it's like to have to survive in the water again, and gradually become braver and braver and braver, and then head off on his own and eventually meet up with other otters.

Will Johnson: Sounds like we're in store for another great episode of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. Thanks again Peter.