An Inside Look at How a Realistic Animatronic Sea Otter Is Created for the Series ‘Spy In the Wild’

The producers of the wonderful BBC Earth and PBS animatronic wild animal series Spy in the Wild have released another fascinating video from John Nolan’s studio, where he and stitcher Val Jones are creating an animatronic Spy Otter who they hope will blend in amongst real Alaskan sea otters in a future episode.

It takes incredible patience and an artistic eye to get this Spy Otter to look as lifelike as possible. Its this attention to detail that makes it really come alive. It will be many weeks before it’s ready to be deployed among the sea otters of Alaska. And when the day comes there are no guarantees it will work.