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Whiskers wasn’t your average sea otter.

Rather than hang out with his own kind off Nootka Island on the west coast of Vancouver Island, he would often come ashore to socialize with humans.

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He’d crawl onto the lap or around the neck of the assistant lightkeeper’s 14-year-old son, Gabe, and would even go after balls tossed into the ocean.

But Whiskers’ behaviour also troubled Ed and Pat Kidder, who served 44 years on “the lights” before retiring in 2003.

One day the area dogs were down by the rocks barking and Whiskers pushed a log towards them, daring them to jump onto it and come closer. Pat recalls thinking: “ ‘Don’t go out on there or he’ll have you and you’ll wind up dead.’ Whiskers was a smart animal.”

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None of the dogs fell for it then, but a couple of days later, the Kidders saw one of the dogs, Tuk, floating in the water — drowned. Whiskers was there, too, copulating with the carcass while parading past the other two wildly barking dogs.