TUPPER LAKE - It's hard to know who is enjoying The Wild Center's enhanced otter habitat more - the otters of the people.

Visitors, and children especially, love to watch the museum's three otters - Skeaker, Squirt and Louie - slice effortlessly through the water. In the past, though, it has been difficult to see them in action.

The enhancement expanded the viewing window, which was sometimes too crowded for visitors on busy days and increased the otters' dry land area with two sleeping dens, complete with a softer substrate for more comfortable sleeping. Otters sleep as much as 16 hours a day.

It also provided the otters with a new outdoor play area, not visible to the public, including a sand box for digging and trees for climbing, a hammock, tire swing and water trough, complete with heated flooring.

According to The Wild Center, the most popular part of the enhancement is a new crawl-through tunnel. During Spring Outside!, a community free day in May, entire families were crawling through the tunnel.

The best times to see the otters are when they come out on exhibit at 10:30 a.m. during feeding or at 2:30 p.m. during otter enrichments sessions, according to the Wild Center.

The enhancement was supported by a grant made possible by The Community Foundation of Herkimer & Oneida Counties Inc., the Rosamond G. Childs Fund, the Wesley & Marion Small Fund and also by Tourism Cares and the Sweetgrass Foundation.