Cute, Clever & Curious

Student researchers work to unlock otter intelligence.

From the fall 2025 issue of Sacred Heart University Magazine

Key Highlights

• Sacred Heart professor Deirdre Yeater is leading a national research effort, ManyOtters, to study otter cognition, problem-solving and long-term memory
• The project uses puzzle feeders at multiple zoos and nature centers to assess how otters interact with enrichment challenges and what these behaviors reveal about their cognitive skills
• Yeater collaborates with psychology professors Heather Manitzas Hill and Caroline DeLong, forming the first large-scale, multi-site otter cognition research team
• Findings aim to improve animal welfare, helping zoos tailor enrichment and care to individual otters’ personalities and abilities
• SHU students play major roles in fieldwork, video coding, data collection and project management, gaining valuable hands-on research and teamwork experience

By Kimberly Swartz

On a hot August day, Deirdre Yeater, known for her research on canine and dolphin cognition, is observing North American river otters at the Beardsley Zoo in Bridgeport.

The psychology professor and her student researchers prepare to watch the otters tackle a foraging puzzle. Today’s challenge: a clear plastic canister on a square of white plastic float-ing in the water. The canister holds raw fish, sealed with a large yellow screw top. If the otter unscrews the top, it gets the treat.

The researchers set a timer, start recording video and begin to observe the lithe, brown creature in the water. The otter curves its body around the canister in an attempt to pop the top. Yeater and her team giddily whisper among themselves. The otter glistens in the sunlight. It pushes the floating feeder along and continues to inspect it with its wet black nose. It claws at the contraption and sniffs at it. At one point, the otter hangs onto the canister, flipping and dipping into the water only to come back up for air still determined to get its treat. Eventually, the otter opens the canister and enjoys the fish. Yeater and her research students record the data.

^{Puzzle Masters: By recording, timing and analyzing how otters tackle specially built puzzle feeders, research teams study animal cognition and track how memory-based play might improve otters' lives.}

There is no debating it: Otters are cute. In cartoons and children’s books, they’re depicted as sneaky, energetic animals who love to play. On the internet, you can easily find videos of otters floating in riverbeds nuzzling up on one another. Taylor Swift even admits that otter clips—via fiancé Travis Kelce’s In-stagram—are among the few things she looks at online.

But what do we actually know about these mammals?

Yeater is working to expand the answer to that question. She is a co-principal investigator on a project called ManyOtters, a group of researchers dedicated to studying otter cognition. Yeater works with psychology professors Heather M. Manitzas Hill of St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, TX, and Caroline DeLong of Rochester Institute of Technology in New York, who are also co-principal investigators. DeLong and Yeater helped conceptualize the ManyOtters team.

Yeater runs the same tests in Connecticut that her colleagues conduct nationwide.

The testing instruments are simple: puzzle feeders of various designs. Some resemble rectangular Tupperware containers with tricky lids; others look like cake stands with large plastic doors. Once the otters unlock the feeders or remove the lids, they can retrieve a snack, such as fish, oysters or squid. Yeater and her students film, time, observe and analyze the otters as they try to solve puzzles. Each animal gets 10 minutes per puzzle. Some solve them in seconds; others struggle. The group observes one otter at a time. Eight weeks later the otters repeat the same puzzles under observation.

Will they remember their solutions? How do results compare across species? Yeater is studying North American river otters at two sites: the Beardsley Zoo and the Stamford Museum & Nature Center. The other otter species participating in the ManyOtters project include Asian small-clawed otters, spotted-necked otters and sea otters.

According to Yeater, a few published papers on otters in zoological facilities inspired the ManyOtters project. Yeater believes a long-term memory study and its findings could enrich otters’ lives in zoos and aquariums and benefit the staff who look after them. “The information we collect from the puzzle feeders may have implications for zoos’ enrichment programs,” Yeater says. “The otters continue to interact with the puzzles even after the food is extracted, indicating these may be enriching ‘play’ items.”

Any cognitive enrichment task helps keep otters’ minds sharp, she adds.

Hill, a founding member of ManyOtters, says learning how individual otters react to novel stimuli provides a better understanding of their personalities, which allows their care to be individualized by zoo staff. It will promote “elevated welfare” for each otter.

“The current study is also assessing long-term memory in otters, which will provide some knowledge about the length of their memory,” says Hill, who enjoys watching the otters solve the puzzles in unexpected ways. “This may be helpful for understanding their responses to certain environmental stimuli or experiences.”

Yeater’s research students also ensure the project runs smoothly while gaining real-world experience. The same can be said for Hill’s and DeLong’s research assistants. The students all play pivotal roles. They go to the zoo or nature center or watch videos of the otters, observe the mammals’ cognitive abilities, collect and record data, work on the ManyOtters website and perform other instrumental research tasks.

Angelika Falandysz ’26, a psychology major minoring in neuroscience, has always been fascinated by animals. Growing up with parents from rural Poland, she was surrounded by livestock. In fifth grade, she gave a presentation on “animal doctors” and made it her goal to become a veterinarian. During high school, she devoured books about canine behavior. Falandysz says she read everything by researcher Alexandra Horowitz, who is known for her work with dogs.

After meeting service dogs on campus, Falandysz wanted to get involved in canine research, and that’s what led her to Yeater. (The two bonded over their love of Horowitz’s findings.) Falandysz is currently a research assistant in Yeater’s canine cognition lab, and when she learned about the ManyOtters project, she was “ecstatic.” Along with posting about the otters on social media, Falandysz codes the otters’ behavior in spreadsheets to keep records consistent.

“I love getting to work in psychology, the area I’m interested in, but I also love working with a variety of animal species,” she says.

Alum Samantha Gojcaj ’25 graduated in May with her bachelor’s in psychology and is studying to get her doctorate in clinical psychology at Bryant University. She also worked on Yeater’s canine research project and was excited to get additional lab experience with the otters.

Gojcaj says she particularly liked watching the otter videos while also coding.

“While observing the otters engage in the cognitive tasks, we code specific aspects of their behavior, such as the number of times they did an action in solving the puzzle, the seconds each action took and the overall time it took to solve the puzzle,” she says. “I liked this aspect of it because I had the opportunity to see the thought process of animals while problem-solving and seeing firsthand their long-term memory skills.”

Gojcaj believes her experience on the ManyOtters project prepared her for the doctoral program and future research proposals. She feels confident recruiting participants, coding and interpreting data. She also gained experience collaborating effectively with a team.

The studies—funded through SHU and Rochester Institute of Technology research grants—in Connecticut and at 10 other sites in the country will go on for the next year with the hopes of gaining more traction. (There has been interest from international sites as well.) After the year is up, the scholars’ data will be examined and then incorporated into a published paper.

“We are excited to have this group and work on this together,” Yeater says about ManyOtters. “When you have a limited number of subjects, it’s hard to get results.”

Prior to ManyOtters, no single site had enough otters to produce meaningful findings. The ManyOtters project made large-scale research possible.

“Building the ManyOtters group connects researchers and zoo professionals around the country—and hopefully around the world—so we can collaborate on significant research projects,” says DeLong, a founding member of ManyOtters. “It will provide many undergraduate and graduate students with opportunities to participate in animal cognition research.”

Depending on what researchers discover during the next year, there will likely be a phase two of the ManyOtters project. Yeater, Hill and DeLong hope that through all the research, they’ll learn a little bit more about the cognitive skills of otters and can provide enriching programs for them in zoos and nature centers. Yeater says everyone involved is excited to see the outcomes and looks forward to more work with the energetic mammals.