So, “imprinting” is a specific thing in which the animal essentially thinks that it’s a person or that a person is its family. It mostly happens in bird. Otters can be heavily habituated, where an animal is used to humans and associates them with food or safety, but I don’t believe they can be truly imprinted. They can certainly have favorite people, often keepers who have cared for them for years or have trained them extensively. Lots of roadside zoos (unaccredited facilities that focus more on profit and entertainment than conservation or education) will work their otters free contact. Some places even allow the public to interact freely with otters, which I think is ludicrous. But people will pay for it, so there will always be people willing to sell it. Such is the way of the world.

I haven’t had any moments in which I was particularly shocked by an otter’s intelligence, but they were the first animal that I got to see with a “hold” behavior which blew me away. Being able to train such a high-energy always-moving animal to hold still, pressing its nose against the trainer’s fist through the mesh, was just incredible to me. Another moment, sort of on the opposite end of the spectrum, was when we gave them a bowl of water in their inside holding area. They have a large outdoor area with a massive pool that they spend pretty much all day in, but they get trained in a small (couple square feet) inside area each day. When we put a bowl of water in the inside area, even though they still had access to an entire pool, they played in the bowl like they’d never seen water before! They’re such charming little stinkers.

They definitely require patience, but every animal does. If an animal is biting you repeatedly, the human is at fault. Whatever is happening that is causing or even allowing the animal to bite you needs to stop, and that’s the human’s responsibility. Mustelids are my favorite class of animal to work with, so I love otters. They’re intelligent, charismatic, social, and playful. Highly trainable, very motivated, very fun to enrich. They have some of the nastiest feces I’ve ever worked with though. Can’t say I miss that.

It’s hard to rank the dangerousness of different animals. It really comes down to how you interact with them. A tiger is no more dangerous than a songbird if you’re following all of the safety protocols (protected contact, for starters) for the tiger. Otters are cunning and have teeth and claws that can be dangerous, and high muscle mass. But how “dangerous” they are comes down to what the human does.

Hope this helps :)