Otters Enjoy Fishy Thanksgiving Feast Complete with Mahi-Mahi Turkey and Mussel Gravy — Watch!

Mar. 15, 2025

The Asian small-clawed otters ofLiving Shores Aquariumin Glen, New Hampshire, put their own spin on the classic Thanksgiving feast.

The impressive meal was a holiday surprise for the otters. To ensure the Thanksgiving feast was hit, the aquarium replaced the classic Thanksgiving food items with fishier options they knew the otters would love — and would be safe for them to consume.

Instead of turkey, the animals dined on mahi-mahi with mussel gravy and enjoyed a mix of trout blood and gelatin instead of cranberry sauce. The dessert course was replaced with an otter kibble pie, finished with a sardine lattice.

The Thanksgiving meal animal caretakers prepared for the Asian small-clawed otters at the Living Shores Aquarium in New Hampshire.Courtesy of Living Shores Aquarium

Courtesy of Living Shores Aquarium

“We all decided to take the otters' natural diet and tried to put a spin on it to make it look like Thanksgiving food,” Stacy Gendron, Living Shores' lead otter caretaker, tells PEOPLE, adding, “Everything they were served was either part of their normal diet or safe for them to eat.”

Gendron says the aquarium created the fishy Thanksgiving feast as part of its ongoing efforts to find “new ways to interact with the otters and keep them stimulated throughout the day.”

“They are very food-driven and curious; anything new to them, they love to explore,” she says of the otters.

Asian small-clawed otters enjoying a fishy Thanksgiving meal at Living Shores Aquarium in Glen, New Hampshire.Courtesy of Living Shores Aquarium

Knowing the animals — who act “just like toddlers” — would have some reaction to the surprise holiday meal, the aquarium’s staffers filmed the otters trying the food for the first time.“All 5 of them reacted to the feast very differently. Peanut, Jelly, and Saco were very curious and were not afraid to check it out at all. Their favorite was the shrimp cocktail. Teddy and Harry were a bit more skeptical, but their favorite was the lake smelt on the mock meat pie,” Gendron says of the footage the aquarium captured.

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The otters weren’t the only aquarium residents to receive a Thanksgiving treat.

“Our snails and hissing cockroaches got a mock Thanksgiving dinner as well made up of delicious vegetables. All other residents stuck to their normal diets,” Gendron shares.

source: people.com