The day Theo Truax did what he had never done before began with an urgent message from his aunt. “There’s an otter in the pool,” says Theo, remembering the message he received on his phone. “We have to get it out.” So he headed straight for the ocean house his family was renting for a meeting and discovered a river otter at the bottom of the almost empty pool. The animal had brought a fish to eat in the background before realizing that there was no way to climb back. “Obviously we have to get this otter out of the pool,” thought Theo, watching the animal swim around the shallow water and try to climb the steep walls. “It should not be so difficult. That’s what I thought. “ Theo is a search and rescue volunteer who has helped save countless people. But that, it turns out, was “very” different. Initially, they tried to lure the otter into the net of a pool scoop. “He would try and then swim around, and then he would try and then he would swim in the fish,” says Theo. They passed the scoop of the pool and applied an “otter” design. For the second attempt, they lowered a long, blue tire to the bottom of the pool. There is a video with the otter climbing on it. People from above cheer in support, before panting when the otter slips off the hose and falls back into the water. “It simply came to our notice then. “The otter was not comfortable with that,” explains Theo. “And then we got the diary.” Seeing that the house was next to the ocean and Theo is a shipbuilder, he looked for driftwood to climb the otter. “I know how to pick a stump,” laughs Theo. “So I threw it over my shoulder and almost hit my partner in the face, shaking the log to put it in the pool.” The stump was definitely a hit with the otter. “There was no going back when the otter found the stump,” says Theo. The video shows the otter lifting the stump, before it almost slipped over it and turned over on it. People gasp outside the camera. But then the animal goes back and starts running on the stump again, proving that it is determined to let nothing stop it from getting “otter” there. “It was good to see the otter run free,” says Theo. Theo and his family also took the forgotten fish and left it on the beach for the otter. The log remained there as well, though Theo plans to keep it for later. “He’s become a bit of a legendary log in the family,” says Theo, pointing to a photo of his T-shirt showing a lumberjack saying, “I know how to pick a log.” Maybe Theo will wear the shirt when he grinds the log. The shipwright says he can use the wood to build his own boat. Asked what he would name the boat, Theo quickly replied: “The otter. It should be”. There really is no “otter” option.
