Thick wildfire smoke in Washington won’t stop this asthmatic otter from breathing easy

Thick smoke from wildfires in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia have choked the Pacific Northwest, contributing to poor air quality and breathing issues for many. But one asthmatic otter is breathing easy — because her trainers have taught her how to use an inhaler.

Mishka, a four-year-old sea otter at the Seattle Aquarium, developed asthma in 2015, when wildfire smoke blanketed the city from fires in Eastern Washington, according to a 2015 news release from the Seattle Aquarium.

Trainers taught her how to use an inhaler by using food to reward her for pushing her snout on the inhaler and breathing, according to the release.

“We try to make it as fun as possible,” aquarium biologist Sara Perry said in the news release. “Anytime you’re training a medical behavior, you want to make it nice and positive.”

Air quality has tanked in the Pacific Northwest — sparking warnings of a “major smoke event” and temporarily grounding planes at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, the Tacoma News Tribune reported.

“Whenever the air quality is bad, we keep a closer eye on all of our animals,” Caitlin Hadfield, senior veterinarian at the aquarium, told the Seattle Times. “Because she has this history, she in particular is the one that we monitor.”

Mishka is trained daily on how to use the inhaler correctly, the Seattle Times reported.

“What we want to do is maintain the behavior, so we can give it several times a day if we need to,” Hadfield told the Seattle Times.

“Anything in (the otters’) exhibit, they are very curious so they will take it and play with it,” trainer Julie Carpenter told KING 5. “So we had to really teach her that this isn’t a toy. This is training time. It’s school time now.”

So far, Mishka is doing well despite the hazardous wildfire smoke, Traci Belting, curator of birds and mammals at the aquarium, told KUOW.

“Our animal care staff and veterinarian continue to monitor her respiratory health and thankfully she has not had a respiratory event during these smoke filled days,” Belting said in an email to KUOW.

Hadfield told KING 5 that Mishka is “her normal feisty self right now.”

“When she actually does the inhaler, that animal breathes in that medication. That doesn’t just happen,” Tim Kuniholm, director of public affairs for the aquarium, told the Seattle Times. “That’s amazing behavior that animal willingly accepted.”

This story was originally published August 23, 2018 at 1:48 PM.