After listening to her chest and looking at x-rays, the aquarium’s veterinarian, Dr. Lesanna Lahner, diagnosed Mishka with asthma.
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The adorable animal – who now resides at the Seattle Aquarium – was diagnosed by a doctor with the lung disease after smoke from nearby wildfires was making it hard for her to breathe.
While an otter having asthma may seem novel, Mischka’s diagnosis has a connection to human health, according to Peter Rabinowitz, a professor at the University of Washington in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health.
How do you treat it? The inhaler contains the same medication that humans are prescribed to manage asthma symptoms.
Check out the King 5 story to see video of Mishka using her inhaler.
“We try to make it as fun as possible”, said Perry. “Any kind of medical behaviour that you’re training, you want to make sure it’s nice and positive”. Dr. Lahner believes Mishka was susceptible to the disease due to low genetic diversity after sea otters went extinct in their native Pacific Northwest and were replaced by Alaskan sea otters in the late 1960s.
Lahner said there are many reasons Mishka could have developed asthma – just as in people, exposure to airborne contaminants, like smoke from wildfires or pollution, or genetics can play a role. The 1-year-old otter lives at the Seattle Aquarium, where she’s been since January, after being rescued from a fishing net.
But because she’s not used to it, staff have been training her with food.
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The aquarium pointed out that while many believe asthma is a condition that affects only humans, any animal can have it.
