Pod Insights The MeatEater Podcast Ep. 754: How to Skin a Sea Otter About this episode Steven Rinella https://www.instagram.com/stevenrinella/?hl=en talks with Heather Douville https://www.instagram.com/akmoosie/?hl=en and Jimmy Rinella https://www.instagram.com/jimmyrinella/?hl=en in Alaska.
Topics discussed: Big sea otters; the proper skinning technique; the importance of a sharp knife; belly contents; and more.
Connect with Steve https://www.themeateater.com/authors/steven-rinella and The MeatEater Podcast Network https://www.youtube.com/@MeatEaterPodcastNetwork
Steve on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/stevenrinella and Twitter https://twitter.com/stevenrinella?lang=en
MeatEater on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/meateater, Facebook https://www.facebook.com/StevenRinellaMeatEater/, Twitter https://twitter.com/MeatEaterTV?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor, and YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@MeatEaterPodcastNetwork
See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.
0:04 Steven Rinella? Anywhere worth going this holiday season is better in comfortable boots. You can find the perfect pair for you or them if you're shopping for someone at Tacovus. My Tacovus are so comfortable, it's a problem because my high schooler is always trying to steal them. I love the feel of quality leather boots because then you know you're ready for anything. And Tacovus delivers that feeling with confidence and quality. I love them. And if you go to Tacovus store, prepare to be wowed by the customer service. Tacovus boots are handcrafted with over 200 meticulous steps for broken-in comfort right out of the box for the whole family. It's time to bring on the holiday cheer in classic fits and comfortable styles with a new pair of Tacovus Western Boots.
0:50 Steven Rinella? From cowhide and goat to exotic leathers like ostrich and caiman, whether it's your first pair or your 50th pair, Tacovus has your new favorites. Right now, get 10% off at tacovus.com/meateater when you sign up for email and text. That's 10% off at T E C O V A S dot com slash meat eater. Tacovus.com slash meat eater. See site for details. Tacovus, point your toes west. Warning: This product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical. Black Buffalo products are intended for adults aged 21 and older who are consumers of nicotine or tobacco.
1:29 Steven Rinella? Black Buffalo spent 20,000 hours working alongside American farmers to build a tobacco alternative that actually dips like the real thing. Long cut ampouges made from barn cured leafy greens with no tobacco leaf or stem and wintergreen mint straight and more. Check your local gas station or C store or hit blackbuffalo.com and use code MEAT for 30% off your first order. Black Buffalo Tobacco Alternative is everything you love about dip, nothing you don't. If you spend a lot of time outdoors, you got dogs, you got kids, you know how hard it is to keep the floor of your rig clean.
2:10 Steven Rinella? A thing we do in our, in our little fleet of vehicles that I have at my household, if you go look, open the door on any one of them, they all got WeatherTech. We get a car, we throw the mats out and put in WeatherTech. Cause that way, when there's a mess, it's like your kid's fault, your dog's fault, it's the weather's fault, doesn't matter. You take them suckers out and hose them off and you're back to being good as new. I'm telling you, if you've got a vehicle, put WeatherTech in there, you're gonna be happy you did it. And check this out, American-made floor liners and cargo liners, okay? They laugh in the face of all weather. Go take a look for yourself today at weathertech.com.
3:13 Steven Rinella? Okay, everybody, welcome to a Meat Eater FOP episode. This is the second FOP we've done out of Alaska. The first FOP, we talked to a bush pilot who claims he's not a bush pilot, and those guys are all gone now. So, but a pilot that one would call a bush pilot who says he's not a bush pilot was FOP 1. Now, we're gonna talk to a genuine sea otter skinner. Heather Douville, AKA Moosey, um, kind of the last of the dying breed, or the la- the, not the last of a dying breed, the new specimen of an emerging breed of sea otter hunters. And before you have a heart attack, Heather will explain why it comes that she is allowed
3:55 Steven Rinella? to hunt and skin sea otters and why, say, me or my son James here are not.
4:03 Speaker 03 Okay. So, this sea otter is legally harvested because by the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the agency, I'm able to participate and hunt marine mammals and work with their furs. So.
4:20 Steven Rinella? So you can hunt it, you can skin it, you can make stuff out of it. You can't sell the hide whole, but you can, you make and sell products from sea otter hide.
4:28 Speaker 03 Right.
4:28 Steven Rinella? And sea otter fur is the densest fur.
4:31 Speaker 03 Yeah, it's the densest fur out of any, any mammal. So if you look closely, you guys, this sea otter, you know, I hosed it off. But when you part their fur, that undercoat stays dry. So I brought a little piece of tanned fur. And if you dunk it under the water, you know, it'll look wet. But when you part the fur, that undercoat's always dry. And that's what keeps sea otter warm. They don't have a fat layer like seals do. Not really, like seals have a thick blubber. Sea otter depend on their incredibly dense coat and these unique properties. And their extremely high metabolism, which is why they eat so much.
5:16 Speaker 03 So this one weighs 82 pounds.
5:19 Steven Rinella? Okay.
5:19 Speaker 03 We weighed it. So this one would consume like 20 pounds of shellfish per day.
5:27 Steven Rinella? Wow.
5:28 Speaker 03 So they have extremely high metabolism.
5:31 Steven Rinella? He's good for 20 pounds of shellfish a day?
5:33 Speaker 03 Per day. So they can decimate an area pretty quickly when a group of them, you know, move in and...
5:43 Steven Rinella? Damn.
5:46 Speaker 03 I start by removing the paws and you can see on its paws here, it has some scars.
5:50 Steven Rinella? Yep.
5:51 Speaker 03 From digging.
5:53 Steven Rinella? That's the cutest little paw in the world right there.
5:55 Speaker 03 Got some little retractable claws like a cat.
6:04 Speaker 03 And then I just go around.
6:06 Steven Rinella? Okay, so you remove the front feet.
6:08 Speaker 03 Remove the front.
6:08 Steven Rinella? At the wrist joint. You taking the back feet all the way off?
6:12 Speaker 03 Nope, I just cut around.
6:14 Steven Rinella? Okay.
6:15 Speaker 03 And up like this.
6:18 Steven Rinella? Cut up to the vent.
6:21 Speaker 03 And then same thing on this side.
6:24 Steven Rinella? How many otters are you skinning a year?
6:27 Speaker 03 Um, last year, almost 200. And this year, I got about 120 so far.
6:36 Steven Rinella? Okay. And what do you, what number are you shooting for?
6:39 Speaker 03 Uh, I've maxed my-
6:42 Steven Rinella? Don't keep the tail.
6:43 Speaker 03 I've maxed my personal budget for tanning.
6:46 Steven Rinella? That's the limiting factor.
6:49 Speaker 03 This is my last one.
6:50 Steven Rinella? Okay.
6:51 Speaker 03 Until I could sell, sew some items and, and sell them and try to re-keep costs.
6:56 Steven Rinella? Cause it's so expensive to get them tanned.
6:57 Speaker 03 Yeah, it's about a hundred and eight dollars a piece.
7:00 Steven Rinella? Alright.
7:01 Speaker 03 If you send a large volume, you get a price break and the price break is about a hundred and eight.
7:05 Steven Rinella? I notice you don't retain the tail.
7:07 Speaker 03 Yeah, so I'm not saving the tail and I also don't save the face.
7:12 Steven Rinella? So in that way, it's a lot different than normal skinny, normal fur bears. Cause a normal fur bear, you want, you got the tail and the face, or else they'll call it damaged.
7:20 Speaker 03 Right, and, and we can't sell whole pelts.
7:23 Steven Rinella? Yup, so you just want, use anything that's usable to you.
7:27 Speaker 03 I used to skin the whole thing and keep the face and tail on the pelt. But since it's illegal to sell whole pelts and it's illegal for anyone who isn't eligible through the Marine Mammal Protection Act to obtain one. Um, they've gone missing when I've sent them off to tanneries. They've gone missing off Eric Fargo.
7:53 Steven Rinella? Oh, really?
7:54 Speaker 03 From a tannery I had used.
7:58 Speaker 03 So if they're not whole to begin with, they're less likely to go missing and I haven't had one go missing since.
8:04 Steven Rinella? I got it.
8:04 Speaker 03 We've had boxes of them go missing.
8:06 Steven Rinella? No kidding, whole, hi, yeah, I see.
8:08 Speaker 04 So if you, even if you didn't sell it, but gave it to me, I legally wouldn't be able to retain this?
8:13 Speaker 03 Right, not a whole pelt. It has to be converted to what is called an authentic native handicraft.
8:22 Speaker 03 This is a male, yeah. It has to be sewn into something where you can't make it whole.
8:30 Steven Rinella? Got it. And then how many, is your limiting factor in how many products you make? Cause you make scarves, hats, mittens, pillows. Is your, are you limited mostly by how many you can sew? Like how much you can sew or are you limited by how much you can hunt?
8:49 Speaker 03 I would go out and hunt every day if I could, as many as I can, whenever I can. Cause we're trying to hunt to achieve some sort of balance in our ecosystem. Cause there's just an over abundant population of sea otters. And we're not able to harvest, you know, the shellfish that we used to anymore.
9:10 Speaker 03 But I prefer to hunt. I like to be outside on this, you know, in the skiff.
9:17 Steven Rinella? You prefer that to sewing?
9:18 Speaker 03 Yeah, and I, I reserve sewing for those late fall and winter months where it's pouring rain, blowing 60, dark.
9:28 Steven Rinella? Yep.
9:29 Speaker 04 Is it bland?
9:31 Speaker 03 Yeah. My dad sharpened this knife. It's so sharp.
9:35 Steven Rinella? He told me he did. It's sharp. It's ridiculously sharp. So he said it's really sharp, yeah.
9:41 Speaker 03 The only other person that sharpened my knife and got it razor sharp like my dad does is you. You sharpened my knife one time.
9:50 Steven Rinella? Yeah.
9:51 Speaker 03 And I was like, so I took this first cut, I was like, ah, cause I got close. Cause I cannot get my knives this sharp, but you and my dad are pros.
10:02 Steven Rinella? Now, just for people that are, this is on video, if you want to go check it out on video, but um, there's a good chance you're just listening, so.
10:09 Speaker 03 Oh, okay.
10:12 Steven Rinella? Heather has gotten the otter, cut around the bait, cut around all four legs, cut around the base of the tail, opened it up from chin down to chin to groin.
10:21 Speaker 03 And we've skinned this on a table flat. Well, typically at home I'd use my tailgate.
10:27 Steven Rinella? Okay.
10:28 Speaker 03 You don't hang them, like you hang a deer.
10:30 Steven Rinella? Why a tailgate?
10:33 Speaker 03 It works better for us to just skin them flat and roll them.
10:39 Steven Rinella? Okay.
10:39 Speaker 03 Same as a seal, so we'd skin a seal the same way. I have two different knives. Not a drop point girl. This is my skinning knife.
10:48 Steven Rinella? Okay.
10:50 Speaker 03 So I prefer
10:53 Speaker 03 a skinning knife that isn't a drop point and then I have this flat, like a four and a half inch knife for roughing around the paws, you know, to remove them and going around those bony areas.
11:05 Speaker 04 Is the bruising on the hide from getting in a fight with another otter?
11:11 Speaker 03 Um.
11:14 Speaker 03 Yeah, sometimes they have bruises like there was one we saw here.
11:19 Steven Rinella? But they do get out with each other?
11:21 Speaker 03 And they scrap. Especially these, these big males are pretty aggressive and they
11:25 Steven Rinella? Yeah, this sucker is like, I, I just would never guess that these, that they're as big as they are. Like you've, you've gotten them close to 100 pounds.
11:32 Speaker 03 Yeah, this one weighs, you know, like 82 pounds, but the, the largest one I ever got was 99 pounds and
11:48 Steven Rinella? No, I got a question for you, like, and just while we're on it here, just interrupt you.
11:53 Speaker 03 Yeah, you bet.
11:54 Steven Rinella? Um. In a like cleaning normal fur bears, you never would want to skin them, soak them wet like this. You'd always want to dry them first. How do you eventually dry, how do you dry it?
12:07 Speaker 03 Um, so I would
12:11 Speaker 03 flush it. I flush all these with the pressure washer. So as you can see, I'm skinning it and I'm just roughing it out.
12:17 Steven Rinella? Yep.
12:18 Speaker 03 Because you can spend an hour skinning it real close, or I could spend 10 minutes skinning it like this and 10 minutes flushing it with the pressure washer. So when working with large volumes, you want to be as efficient as possible.
12:32 Steven Rinella? Yeah, and you're gonna get it wet when you flush it anyways.
12:34 Speaker 03 Yeah, and so then I would salt it, you know, let it drip after I flush it, salt it.
12:41 Speaker 03 Fold it the hot dog way. You know, in and roll it and let it cure for like three days.
12:50 Steven Rinella? And that'll dry the eye.
12:51 Speaker 03 Shake it out and you have to hang it with a dehumidifier in my greenhouse, which is now my fur drying shed. And they dry.
13:01 Speaker 03 They're cured and dried. So here's another bruise. See that on its back?
13:04 Steven Rinella? That's him duking it out with his buddies.
13:06 Speaker 03 Yeah.
13:06 Steven Rinella? Your enemies.
13:10 Speaker 04 So would a male like this be territorial over a certain area or do they move around?
13:14 Speaker 03 I think so. The big males like this, they tend to be more like loners. This guy was alone.
13:20 Steven Rinella? He was?
13:21 Speaker 03 Not with a pod. And usually when you see a single one like that, can I? He's by here.
13:29 Speaker 03 Usually when you see one just single, it's typically a bigger male.
13:38 Steven Rinella? If you spend a lot of time outdoors, you got dogs, you got kids, you know how hard it is to keep the floor of your rig clean? A thing we do in our, in our little fleet of vehicles that have at my household, if you go look, open the door on any one of them, they all got WeatherTech. We get a car, we throw the mats out and put in WeatherTech. Cause that way, when there's a mess, it's like your kid's fault, your dog's fault, it's the weather's fault, doesn't matter. You take them suckers out and hose them off and you're back to being good as new. I'm telling you, if you got a vehicle, put WeatherTech in there, you're gonna be happy you did it. And check this out, American made floor liners and cargo liner, okay? They laugh in the face of all weather. Go take a look for yourself today at weathertech.com.
14:18 Steven Rinella? What if you could save up for that new car or vacation just by buying the stuff you're already buying? With the OnePay banking app, you earn 3% cash back on up to $150 in monthly spending in categories you choose. So it's easy to save. So what are you saving for? Maybe you got your eyes on a new truck or a new boat, or you're saving up for your first house. Download the OnePay app or visit onepay.com for banking that gives you more for what matters.
14:49 Speaker 05 OnePay is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by Coastal Community Bank or Lead Bank, members FDIC. Cash back is earned as points. Go to onepay.com/rewards/terms for redemption options and additional details.
15:04 Steven Rinella? When you're miles deep in the mountains and carrying everything you need on your back, your boots aren't gear you think about, they're what you depend on. That's why Western hunters trust Zamberland. And man, I'm telling you, I've been running around in some Zamberlands. They are so comfortable and just well-built and feel great in the hills. Family-owned and handcrafted in Italy through three generations. Zamberland boots combine nearly a century of bootmaking expertise with premium materials and new innovations for any pursuit, game, and terrain. They're comfortable, supportive, resolable, and built for the long haul. From rocky desert to steep shale slopes, Zamberland's perfected their craft to ensure your success.
15:46 Steven Rinella? Head to zamberlandusa.com for handcrafted boots for every season. Zamberlandusa.com. You're gonna love getting your feet into a set of these.
15:58 Steven Rinella? How long did it take you to skin your first one compared to where you're at now?
16:02 Speaker 03 I just talked about this. Oh, man. I remember my dad, when my dad teaches you, he shows you once. That's how he learned. Then he gives you the knife. So, so I'm out there by myself in the dark with the headlamp. You know, it's winter. And it took me like an hour and a half. And I thought, oh, man, I'll never be able to do this. And he's so good at it and...
16:27 Steven Rinella? Oh, so your dad is good, was good at skinning otters already?
16:30 Speaker 03 Yeah, oh, he could do it in like 10 minutes. So after a lot of practice, you know, now I could skin one in about 10 minutes too. But initially, it took me like an hour and a half. I was pretty discouraged, but I didn't want to give up.
16:50 Speaker 03 So I'm gonna turn this guy around.
16:59 Speaker 03 And same thing on this side, so. And sometimes, this is called the usik.
17:05 Steven Rinella? Yeah, man.
17:06 Speaker 03 Sometimes those are broke.
17:08 Steven Rinella? Oh, really?
17:10 Speaker 03 Yeah.
17:11 Steven Rinella? Huh.
17:12 Speaker 03 So I always check.
17:15 Steven Rinella? My dad had a, a term, uh, that would basically, in, in Italian.
17:21 Speaker 03 What was it?
17:22 Steven Rinella? That you were a dead dick.
17:24 Speaker 03 Oh. I thought it was broke.
17:26 Steven Rinella? That would, well, that would, he would qualify, you know?
17:30 Speaker 03 Sometimes they're broke because they're pretty aggressive, but.
17:33 Steven Rinella? Huh. You've seen broken usiks?
17:36 Speaker 03 Mm-hmm, sea otter.
17:38 Steven Rinella? Oh.
17:40 Speaker 03 Actually, don't know if I've ever seen the other kind of usik, but yeah, sometimes they're broken. Sometimes you find sea otter with bullets in them and I, I have a jar, every year I keep a jar. And whatever I pull out of them, uh, birdshot.
17:56 Steven Rinella? Still in the jar.
17:57 Speaker 03 Twenty-two bullets.
17:59 Steven Rinella? Yeah.
17:59 Speaker 03 Uh, two twenty-three I pulled out of there, um, I keep them.
18:05 Steven Rinella? Okay, so now the otter's on its back, she's skinning from the center line, uh, back the other direction. He's half done, right?
18:12 Speaker 03 Yeah. Half done.
18:16 Steven Rinella? And then just to, we won't see this part, but just as you're doing this. So you're gonna get this skin off, and like you said, you're going fast, so you leave on, you're leaving on a lot of, uh, leaving on a lot of muscle, some fat. Uh, we did a, we did a swap with some guys skinning in Africa and they clean skinned.
18:34 Speaker 03 Mm-hmm.
18:35 Steven Rinella? So they didn't go back and flesh anything, they would just take two guys, take all the time in the world just to totally clean skin something. But you're doing a rougher skin.
18:43 Speaker 03 Kind of roughing it out and, because typically you'd hunt in larger volumes, so.
18:49 Speaker 03 If you have 15 to skin and they're incredibly dense fur is going to hold that body heat, you get the pelt off fast.
18:56 Steven Rinella? Got it, got it.
18:57 Speaker 03 You can't wait till tomorrow. They'll get a green belly and it will start to spoil, so.
19:02 Steven Rinella? And when you, and you'll flesh with, you'll lay it out down by the beach so you don't make a mess. And you flesh with a pressure washer.
19:10 Speaker 03 Yeah, I use.
19:10 Steven Rinella? And that comes off just clean.
19:13 Speaker 03 Yeah, it's a pretty incredible tool.
19:16 Steven Rinella? And then from there, uh, so then you got a soaking wet but clean flesh hide. And then you're laying it and really just packing it in salt.
19:27 Speaker 03 Kind of lay it flat, let it drip, you know, and then rub salt on it, just like you would salt any hide.
19:32 Steven Rinella? Okay.
19:33 Speaker 03 And then.
19:33 Steven Rinella? Both sides?
19:35 Speaker 03 Um, nope, just the, just the skin side. Sometimes I put just the salt from the table. It's, you know.
19:41 Steven Rinella? Yeah.
19:42 Speaker 03 There from previous hides and.
19:44 Steven Rinella? But I mean, but a hide like this is going to use a few pounds of salt, right?
19:49 Speaker 03 I think I can salt about 10 pelts with a 50 pound bag of salt.
19:54 Steven Rinella? Okay, alright.
19:55 Speaker 03 I usually go through over a thousand pounds of salt a year.
19:58 Steven Rinella? Okay, so you pack five pounds of salt on a hide like this?
20:02 Speaker 03 Yeah.
20:02 Steven Rinella? And it has to be, sit there, how many days to cure?
20:05 Speaker 03 Um, about three days. You want at least three days. We live in, you know, a really wet climate, so. You want to make sure it's fully cured, then you shake it out and hang it up to dry.
20:16 Steven Rinella? Mm-hmm.
20:17 Speaker 03 And I use a dehumidifier to aid the drying process.
20:23 Speaker 03 Or else I don't think it ever would dry. Where we live, it's just too rainy, too humid. And each tannery has a different
20:34 Speaker 03 preference in how you um, mail your pelts. So some, some tanneries for sea otters, they'll flesh them for you.
20:42 Steven Rinella? Really?
20:43 Speaker 03 So you just skin them like this, rough them out, salt them and chip them. But the tannery I use wants them skin-fleshed, salted and dried.
20:52 Steven Rinella? Got it. What do you think of this, Matty, man?
20:55 Steven Rinella? Yeah.
20:55 Speaker 03 I think.
20:56 Steven Rinella? You like to test camera angle?
20:58 Speaker 03 Should we see what it's been eating? When we're all done? My guess is clams.
21:04 Steven Rinella? Hang tight for what it's been eating, buddy.
21:05 Speaker 03 And hey, we know the clams aren't hot if it's got clams.
21:08 Steven Rinella? That's true, then we just eat them straight out of it. Okay, now you're on the finishing touches. You've skinned both sides back to the backbone, and now you're just skinning down the backbone.
21:16 Speaker 03 So sea otters on its belly, skinning. And it does have a little fat on it. Normally they're... This would be all purple, so no fat at all.
21:28 Speaker 03 Sea otters where I live on the other side of the island are pretty skinny, actually.
21:34 Steven Rinella? And it's what... Interesting thing about these sea otters too is like you think of people that,
21:39 Steven Rinella? people that first came. When like Euro-Americans first showed up, well, not just Euro-Americans, people coming from Mexico and all over the world. Yeah, showed up in like California was like the gold rush brought in outsiders.
21:54 Steven Rinella? In southeast Alaska, it was sea otters brought in outsiders.
21:59 Speaker 03 Yeah, they were, they were referred to, their fur was referred to as soft gold.
22:06 Steven Rinella? Soft gold.
22:06 Speaker 03 And it took a hundred years for, you know, Russians and the fur trade, it took a hundred years to wipe out the population. Yeah, and so in 1911 with the fur seal treaty was signed, ended the fur trade, there was zero sea otters in most of the state. I think there's just a few left in the Aleutian chain.
22:30 Steven Rinella? Took a century to do it.
22:31 Speaker 03 Yeah, a hundred, so.
22:34 Steven Rinella? I never thought about like, I never thought about the timeline on that.
22:38 Speaker 03 Yeah, and, um...
22:42 Speaker 03 Anyway. I'm going around the face here, so I'm just sort of
22:50 Speaker 03 cutting
22:52 Speaker 03 around the nose, because I don't, you know, I don't save the face or the tail.
22:56 Steven Rinella? Good.
22:57 Speaker 03 And then we can take a look and see what it's been eating. And I collect data on all the sea otters that I get.
23:05 Steven Rinella? That's it, hides off.
23:06 Speaker 03 Hides off.
23:07 Steven Rinella? Hold it up for the camera. Jimmy, help hold that up.
23:14 Steven Rinella? That's a slip table. That's not actually a table. It's a lid to some kind of box.
23:18 Speaker 03 Oh no. It's hooked. There you go.
23:24 Steven Rinella? Hose off. No, hose off, you're fine.
23:28 Speaker 03 Here we go.
23:30 Speaker 03 I could rinse it, it would look better.
23:32 Steven Rinella? About five feet tall.
23:34 Speaker 03 It weighed more than the halibut that was caught today.
23:37 Steven Rinella? Yep, weighed more than a big halibut.
23:41 Speaker 03 And we could see what it's been eating.
23:43 Steven Rinella? Okay, that'll be the end of our fop, is the reveal.
23:46 Speaker 03 Can I set this right here?
23:47 Steven Rinella? Maddie, man.
23:49 Speaker 03 Alright, any guesses?
23:50 Steven Rinella? Maddie.
23:52 Speaker 04 Clams.
23:55 Speaker 03 I'm gonna guess clams.
23:56 Steven Rinella? Maddie!
23:57 Speaker 04 How much weight will that hide pertain compared to... Like, will this be a seventy pound?
24:04 Speaker 03 Oh, um, that's a good question. I mean, because the hide has, you know, some of the...
24:09 Steven Rinella? Yeah. Maddie, you can perch up on that table or whatever and stand and watch, but don't get in front of that camera, okay? Don't block the view, but you can perch up and watch what's going on.
24:18 Speaker 03 Any guesses on what it's been eating? I'm gonna guess shrimp?
24:21 Steven Rinella? Shrimp!
24:22 Speaker 03 I'm gonna guess clams. Now. Sea otter guts is one of the worst smells I've ever smelled, so are you ready?
24:32 Steven Rinella? Been up the owl house? What's that?
24:33 Speaker 03 Sometimes I do. Sometimes I retch.
24:37 Steven Rinella? Seriously?
24:37 Speaker 03 Yes, it's, it's, I never know.
24:42 Steven Rinella? You gonna change your guess from shrimp? I like the sounds of shrimp.
24:45 Speaker 03 He's guessing clams.
24:46 Steven Rinella? Mabel, what's your guess, buddy? What he's been eating?
24:55 Steven Rinella? Fish. We got shrimp, we got fish, Conley? Urchins.
24:58 Speaker 03 Urchins.
24:59 Steven Rinella? Conley?
25:01 Speaker 05 I guess clams.
25:02 Steven Rinella? You going clams? Shrimp's the clams. Conley, what are you guessing?
25:07 Speaker 03 Oh, man.
25:08 Steven Rinella? Woo, yeah. Damn!
25:10 Speaker 03 It's the worst.
25:11 Steven Rinella? Like that.
25:12 Speaker 04 Wow, yeah, that's strong.
25:15 Steven Rinella? Who'd thought a sea otter's guts could smell so bad?
25:19 Speaker 03 So, I noticed in the warmer...
25:22 Speaker 03 On the warmer days, a lot of times their belly's empty.
25:26 Steven Rinella? Yeah, like his. Look at that.
25:27 Speaker 03 Cause they don't need as much food to keep warm. Oh, God. Nothing.
25:36 Speaker 03 Nothing.
25:37 Steven Rinella? Who guessed nothing?
25:40 Steven Rinella? No, Conley, you never made a guess.
25:42 Speaker 03 You can see what it's been eating yesterday.
25:44 Steven Rinella? What he meant to say was nothing. When he held his tongue, he meant nothing.
25:48 Speaker 03 What about yesterday?
25:51 Steven Rinella? He hasn't eaten yet today.
25:52 Speaker 03 Yesterday.
25:54 Steven Rinella? Lord knows.
25:56 Speaker 03 Crab. Is it crab legs? Is that what I see in there?
25:59 Speaker 04 Well, that one's a crab leg.
26:00 Steven Rinella? You see a crab leg in there?
26:01 Speaker 04 Look right here.
26:04 Speaker 03 This is, I just, this is such a strong smell. Oh!
26:10 Speaker 03 Is this a little crab?
26:11 Steven Rinella? Shrimp.
26:13 Speaker 03 See the little...
26:14 Steven Rinella? What are you seeing there, Jimmy? Get your nose in there and tell me what you see.
26:18 Speaker 03 Oh, urchin.
26:20 Speaker 03 Who said urchin?
26:20 Speaker 04 A little bit of everything.
26:22 Speaker 03 Maybe...
26:23 Speaker 04 Urchin, crab. Is that clam? The shells right here?
26:28 Speaker 03 Uh, see the needles? That's a urchin. Which I'm shocked it even found one.
26:33 Steven Rinella? Taste that, Jimmy.
26:37 Speaker 04 Are we allowed to possess?
26:38 Steven Rinella? You do it, I'll do it.
26:39 Speaker 04 Heather, is gringos or no?
26:41 Speaker 03 I think that...
26:43 Steven Rinella? Gringos.
26:45 Speaker 03 I tried to check and I think there's no previ... I don't know. I shouldn't say this, because I don't, I'm not...
26:52 Speaker 04 We gotta look at it.
26:52 Speaker 03 From what I... Yeah, I heard, I heard... But look, it's not, they're usually never intact. Cause you shoot them in the head.
27:03 Steven Rinella? Alright, there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. Meat eater foie gras episode. Sea otter hunter Skinner Heather Douville. Skinned a how much? Eighty-two pounder?
27:12 Speaker 03 Eighty-two pounds.
27:13 Steven Rinella? Skinned an eighty-two pound otter. The work has just begun. If you're curious, he did not eat today. Yesterday, he had quite a little variety. He had a cat's platter yesterday of seafood items.
27:26 Speaker 03 He found a urchin.
27:27 Steven Rinella? Yeah, and we had a kid named Conley who kind of made the right guess by not saying anything when asked what it ate.
27:32 Speaker 03 Perfect. Nothing.
27:34 Steven Rinella? Thank you for joining.
27:52 Steven Rinella? If you spend a lot of time outdoors, you got dogs, you got kids, you know how hard it is to keep the floor of your rig clean. A thing we do in our, in our little fleet of vehicles that have in my household, if you go look, open the door on any one of them, they all got WeatherTech. We get a car, we throw the mats out and put in WeatherTech. Cause that way, when there's a mess, it's like your kid's fault, your dog's fault, it's the weather's fault, doesn't matter. You take them suckers out and hose them off and you're back to being good as new. I'm telling you, if you've got a vehicle, put WeatherTech in there, you're gonna be happy you did it. And check this out, American-made floor liners and cargo liners, okay? They laugh in the face of all weather. Go take a look for yourself today at weathertech.com.
28:33 Speaker 06 A BetterHelp ad. I would like to formally request more storage space in my brain. Because somehow I can forget why I opened my laptop where I put my keys, or the name of someone I met 30 seconds ago. But I can remember an awkward conversation from six years ago in extraordinary detail. So if your brain came with a delete button, what would you use it on? Maybe it's that tough breakup you've analyzed from every possible angle, and irrational worry you know doesn't deserve this much attention. The conversation with your boss you keep rehearsing in the shower, or that one comment someone made that you're still thinking about weeks later. We don't always get to choose what sticks around in our heads. BetterHelp is an online therapy platform that gives you space to talk about
29:17 Speaker 06 what's taking up too much of yours. BetterHelp is now in-network with more than 125 health plans, with many copays as low as $15 for eligible members. Visit betterhelp.com. Cost and coverage may vary.
29:32 Steven Rinella? Timeout in the field is not free, okay? Every time you go in the woods, there's a trade-off happening. Like you leave work early, you miss your kid's game, whatever, you forego some family gathering. If that applies to you, what you gotta do is you gotta learn how to spend the right time out in the woods, the right time in the tree. An OnX Hunt's Deer Movement Forecast tells you when deer are most likely to be on their feet based on real conditions, so you're not missing the kid's game or burning paid time off on a day that's not gonna produce. The Deer Movement Forecast means missing fewer of the moments that matter, whether in the stand or back at home. Try it today in OnX Hunt.
30:12 Speaker 00 This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.
Previous Ep. 753: A Life On The Sea Next Ep. 755: Game On, Suckers! MeatEater Trivia CLXXIX Page updated November 1, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated