SANDY -- The Living Planet Aquarium in Sandy is unveiling a new exhibit to showcase three playful river otters.
The exhibit is scheduled to open Thursday and will feature three male otters that moved to Utah from an aquarium in Riverhead, New York. The otters were born two years ago to parents caught in the wild in Louisiana.
Aquarium officials in Long Island had run out of room to accommodate all the adult otters.
River otters were once found throughout most of Utah's waterways. Large quantities of the weasel-like animals were reported to live in the area in the 1830s, but populations declined likely because habitat was destroyed and trapping was unregulated.
Trapping the otters is now illegal.
The exhibit is funded by the George S. and Dolores Dori Eccles Foundation.
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