Otters are fascinating intelligent, emotional, and sentient beings. I’ve had the pleasure of watching them romp around and hang out with their friends. Most people will never see them in the wild and in her insightful and scientifically rigorous new book Romp: A Journey Through the Natural History of Otters and Why They Matter filled with facts and heartwarming stories, otter expert Dr. Heide Island explains how they play, socialize, hunt, survive, and thrive.
It’s clear that Heide isn’t just a first-rate scientist and storyteller—she also deeply cares about otters, and so must we. May 27, 2026 is World Otter Day and I’m pleased she could take the time to answer a few questions about her beautifully written book as many others and I look forward to celebrating these amazing beings.
Marc Bekoff: Why did you write Romp?
Heide Island: I wanted to tell the Lutrine story, the subfamily that represents otters. From the snow sledding river otters of Yellowstone National Park, to the rock ‘juggling,’ Asian small-clawed otters who stash rocks in skin folds along their armpits. Some otters are thieves, like the surfboard-stealing sea otter in Santa Cruz, to the looting of Koi in small aquaculture. Otters are collaborative fishers like giant river otters, and they are also, like the hairy-nosed otter, lone water dogs.
Otters are entrenched in our cultures, from the Kóoshdaa Káa of some Pacific Northwest indigenous cultures to the Yōkai of Japanese folklore. They have been exploited, commodified, and extirpated for their furs, or more recently, as pets within the illegal pet trade. But they have also been protected and celebrated for their intelligence, as tool users, ecosystem engineers, and environmental sentinels. Otters spark a great deal of public curiosity. I hoped to provide a place for that curiosity to land, with clear explanations of how people can support them through habitat and watershed protections and policies that have aided population recoveries.
MB: Who do you hope to reach?
HI: I hope to reach anyone drawn to wild places and the animals that inhabit them, whether they encounter an otter along a riverbank or see one in a zoo or aquarium. Otter encounters, even if it is indirect, through the imagination, it is hard, at least to me, not to want to know more.
MB: What are some of the topics you consider, and what are some of your major messages?
HI: Romp! explores otters through field research, including the joys of long stretches of routine observation and occasional moments of discovery. It traces the evolutionary history of otters and their expansion across nearly every continent while describing their behavioral biology, including foraging flexibility, cognition, reproduction, parenting, and communication. The narrative is grounded in the Pacific Northwest, particularly Whidbey Island and its river otters, but it also follows otter species and the scientific communities that study and advocate for them across the globe, from Bangladesh to the Americas, Europe, and Africa.
Because otters live where water, land, and human activity meet, their lives reveal the condition of the watersheds they occupy. With little body fat, exposure to forever chemicals in their water, food, and air can biomagnify within their bodies. They are also vulnerable to pathogens. I have been reading about the avian flu virus and the vulnerability of sea otters to its zoonotic spread, and what that could mean for a recovering species.
Historically, otters faced intense pressure from the fur trade, and today they encounter new threats, including habitat loss, poaching, and the pet trade. At the same time, policies that protect waterways, wetlands, and coastal ecosystems can produce real conservation gains. I wanted the narrative to show how science, policy, and community action can lead to measurable recovery. The northern elephant seal rebounded from fewer than 100 individuals in the late nineteenth century to a population now numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Many raptor species, including bald eagles, recovered through coordinated efforts such as the banning of DDT, the Endangered Species Act, and captive breeding programs. Otters remind us that similar gains are possible when healthy watersheds, sound policy, and public engagement come together.
MB: How does your work differ from others that are concerned with some of the same general topics?
HI: Many excellent books have shaped how people understand otters. A lovely example is Simon Cooper’s The Otter’s Tale, which follows a Eurasian otter family in a narrative tradition reminiscent of Henry Williamson’s classic Tarka the Otter (1927). At the more academic end, Hans Kruuk’s work on otter behavioral ecology laid much of the scientific foundation for what we know about the group, while Paul and Grace Yoxon, founders of the International Otter Survival Fund (IOSF), wrote Otters of the World, offering a clear overview of the species.
Similarly, Romp! describes the fourteen otter species, as well as the communities of people who study them and the process of gathering field data, while following one specific story: the Patches Romp (one of many collective nouns for otters) on Whidbey Island.
MB: Are you hopeful that, as people learn more about the lives of these fantastic animals, they will treat them with more respect and dignity?
HI: When people connect with another animal’s life, it personalizes them. In your interview with Justin Gregg, author of Humanish, he notes that humanizing animals evolved because it helps us connect with others. The more we see the agency, struggles, resilience, successes, and attachments of animals, the more they become part of our community, naturally leading to respect and concern.
This connection deepens when we recognize the role animals play in ecosystems. Sea otters, for example, are ecological engineers whose predation on sea urchins helps maintain kelp forests, an important habitat for carbon sequestration. Ocean-foraging river otters also deposit marine-derived nitrogen into coastal soils, supporting trophic systems from herbivores to carnivores.
We often hear we need to be better stewards of the planet, and wildlife news can feel overwhelmingly negative. Yet there are real conservation successes. Several otter species, including North American river otters, have rebounded thanks to reintroduction efforts, protections, and watershed recovery. I wanted the book to highlight those successes and show how our actions can contribute to positive change for animals and the ecosystems we share.