For my 30th birthday, I wanted to do an experience with Nurtured by Nature, which is an Environmental Conservation Organization located near Escondido, CA. Their big draw is swimming with otters, but they also provide the opportunity to interact with a lot of different animals as well. The whole day is educational and amazing. Brandon and I had an absolutely fantastic time.
Nurtured by Nature only offers 3 public encounters a week. They also work with Make-A-Wish Foundation, providing one encounter a week for Make-A-Wish children and their families.
To swim with the otters, you must be 18+ years old. They also have Playland Otter Encounter, which allows children 10+ years old to indirectly play with otters.
I visited their Facebook and website nearly every day for the entirety of 2017, wanting to book our encounter for my birthday in May 2018. Finally, in November, they opened their calendar for 2018 (I got a Facebook notification) and I zipped on over to book our day. The first available day I could get was July 20th! I was on their booking site 15 minutes after it opened. An hour or two after I booked, I checked the site again and they were all booked up for the year.
Back to our day! Brandon and I drove down to Escondido on Thursday night to be closer to the venue, otherwise, it would have been an early morning for us, with a 2 hour or more drive from Los Angeles on Friday. From our hotel, we drove about 40 minutes to Nurtured by Nature. We pulled down the driveway and were greeted by our 6 other otter swimmers (they only book 8 people in a group). We had a really nice group and we were all very excited to start our day.
The owner of Nurtured by Nature, Wendy, greeted us, along with our two zoologist Sarah and Brittany. Everyone was super nice and obviously really love the animals they work with.
We started by feeding Fennec foxes some live meal-worms and hibiscus petals. Fennec foxes have a lot of nervous energy. They pace and generally can't seem to keep still. We couldn't get a good picture of them. Nonetheless, they are very cute and little.
We then went to the gazebo to greet a group of 3 month old small clawed otters. They were like extremely hyper puppies. It was amazing. The babies are still learning that we're people and can't engage in otter play like their brothers and sisters can, so we had toys to put in their mouth if they started to bite us. We could barely get a picture of these guys, they move so fast. They were chasing each other around and flying into things, but nothing phased them.
This particular group was going to be adopted by a zoo to help keep otters that are in the wild, stay in the wild and give people who visit zoos an opportunity to learn about the small clawed otter.
Almost all these pictures were taken by Brandon. He's quite the photographer.
How adorable are they?!
Next we met some Pacas. They are part of the rodent family put that have markings that make them look like deer. They were very sweet and liked their grapes.
A Paca eating a grape!
We then met a two-toed sloth named Chewbaca. She was phenomenal. We got to pet her and then watch her make her way around the gazebo. She was particularly interested in trying to get to the tree near the gazebo (it's definitely too far for her to reach) but she spent the majority of her time trying to figure out how to get up there.
While Chewie was trying to work out the tree, we got to meet two 3-banded armadillos. Oh. My. Gosh. They were so cute. The curl up into a perfect ball. And when they get on the ground, they prance and certainly have an alien quality to them.
Holding an armadillo, and Chewie is figuring things out behind me
After the Armadillos, we got to meet some kangaroos. There were 6 kangaroos in an enclosure and we got to walk in with them, and feed them bananas and leaves and pet their fur on their backs and tails. They are very soft!
Brandon feeding banana to one of the kangaroos
We then hiked back up the hill to meet an African Crested Porcupine named Cuddles. He was awesome! We got to feed a porcupine a few months ago for my birthday, but we weren't able to touch it. This guy was huge and his quills are like thick wicker. His top hair felt like a horse's mane. But he was very friendly and excited to eat his bananas and carrots.
Cuddles standing on our legs and eating a banana!
Our next encounter was with lemurs. The zoologist told us that lemurs can't be pet, because they then see you as another lemur. Then when they are adult lemurs, they want to be the dominate lemur of the pack. So, for the lemurs, we just got to hang out and feed them. Mocha and Oreo were very excited to snatch up their bananas. Their hands are so soft!
Mocha - he was a bit piggy and tried to eat all the bananas
Oreo - a more thoughtful eater
After the lemurs, we got to get ready for our otter swim! Nothing can describe how amazing the otter swim is. The otters are so energetic and curious and excited to be swimming and playing with you. We had 5 otters in the pool with us. They were adult otters, but only weigh about 10 lbs each. We had buckets with marbles in them for the otters to dig out, and rope toys and dive toys (like for kids) and they love it all. They also really love playing in your shirt.
An otter in my jar and an otter resting on my arm
There was a lot of splashing!
If you ever get the opportunity to do the Otter Swim with Nurtured by Nature, we absolutely recommend it!
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