Once aboard, the otter appeared visibly panicked, continuously scanning the water's surface as if searching for something.

This video claims a distressed sea otter mom was separated from her pup.

It actually says children multiple times, but that's fine.

The video has 4 million views and is entirely fake.

Let's dive in.

Despite the nearby presence of the killer whale, it disregarded its own safety and jumped back into the water.

Only after the fishermen persuaded it, did it return to the boat.

It turned out she was searching for her own child, although the rescue center across the shore had already found them.

This is a real video of a sea otter who jumped on a boat to escape a pod of orcas.

It's a cool story.

The narration in this video is completely fictional, however.

The otter was not searching for her own child.

It was just escaping the orcas.

In fact, we don't even know if it's a female.

We then cut to a rescued baby sea otter.

Fun fact, I used to work at this facility and I know the people seen caring for this otter who was separated from her mother and flown to a rescue facility.

But that rescue story is nothing like the one that the video is telling.

But likely very hungry, having finished a whole bottle of milk.

The staff showed immense compassion, purchasing many cute toys for the little ones.

Being so young, they would cry if they couldn't find their mother.

We then cut to a video showing a completely different species of animal in an entirely different facility.

The previous clips showed sea otter pups, and this is a river otter pup.

Adorable, but unrelated.

The staff is also wearing different work clothes featuring different logos.

We cut again to a baby sea otter.

This is actually my video of a rescued sea otter pup that I helped raise.

His name is Joey.

And you can learn about Joey's actual rescue story in this video right up here.

We cut back to the baby river otter, then to another sea otter, and then to a completely fictional anecdote about how the fishermen on the boat contacted the rescue center and the two otters were reunited.

Fortunately, two weeks later, the people on the boat managed to contact the rescue center.

Finally, the mother and her children were reunited.

The sea otter excitedly embraced her recovered child.

Tears of gratitude streaming down her face.

Oh, that was horrible.

None of which ever happened.

Joey was deemed non-releasable by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, and you can see him today if you visit Vancouver, along with this rescued pup seen earlier.

I'm KP, a marine biologist who spent over a decade working with sea otters.

And today, we're talking about how to spot fake animal videos.

Heartwarming stories about humans coming to the rescue of animals in need go viral all the time on social media.

While it might seem harmless to like and share a feel-good story like this, it can actually be pretty dangerous if the video is fake.

One of the first questions I ask when I see one of these stories is, who posted the video?

Is it from a trusted source?

There are a lot of really incredible people and organizations out there rescuing animals and sharing their stories on social media.

People like my friends at Ocean Conservation Namibia.

There are also professional rescue centers like Cornish Seal Sanctuary, Oregon Coast Aquarium, and Monterey Bay Aquarium, who rescue countless marine mammals every year.

But I'm always suspicious about videos from anonymous accounts with names like Heartwarming Animal Rescues or Animal Kindness, especially ones that use text-to-voice narration.

Tears of gratitude streaming down her face.

If the video doesn't tell you who they are or who the rescuers are, be suspicious.

Are they even the original creator of the video?

There's my video.

A dead giveaway is a disclaimer in the descriptions that will look like this.

Contact the owner first to use this photo.

All rights are reserved and belong to this photo's owner.

Please DM for credit or removal or no copyright infringement intended.

If you write no copyright infringement intended, is it confession to copyright infringement?

I don't understand.

The next thing I look for is continuity.

Are we seeing the same animal or are they cutting back and forth between different animals or even different species?

Do we see the same people from one clip to the next?

Let's take a look at another example.

This one claims that a mother whale approached a boat and asked the humans to remove its barnacles.

Each clip features a different whale, which you can tell by the distinctive patterns of the barnacles.

Some whales are very white and have a lot of coverage and others do not.

The people in the clips are also different and most aren't helping the whales.

They're just tourists on whale watching boats who are petting the animals, which please, please don't do it.

Please.

It's another video.

Don't go somewhere that allows you to pet wild animals.

Which brings me to the next thing that I look for when I see Does it seem remotely plausible based on what we know about the animals involved?

This video claims the whale is in pain from these barnacles and the humans are helping it by removing them.

When you get a chance, Google Are barnacles bad for whales?

You'll quickly learn that whales and barnacles have a symbiotic relationship that can be mutually beneficial and that barnacles do not harm the whales in any way, shape, or form.

In fact, the humans picking off these barnacles are the ones hurting the whales, whales have thin sensitive skin and barnacles have hard sharp roots that grow into the blubber.

Picking off the barnacles is painful for the whales and it can lead to skin infections.

Stop doing weird shit.

Now we're getting into how these videos are harmful.

They tell stories that make it seem like humans are helping the animals when the truth is often the exact opposite.

They also encourage people to engage in actions that can have serious consequences.

Gray whales are becoming less and less afraid of boats because of interactions like this and this is leading to an increase in deadly vessel strikes.

Best mention that just like lying for views is annoying.

I'm just throwing it out there.

The same is true for the sea otter video.

Sea otter moms will often leave their pups somewhere safe while they forage for food and there have been cases where people stumbled across one of these pups, rescued it, and essentially separated it from its mom who returned shortly after.

If you see an animal who appears to be in distress or a seal or a sea otter pup that is alone, keep your distance, watch for a few hours to see if mom returns, don't interfere with it, and call an animal rescue center who can assess the animal to see if it even needs rescuing in the first place.

Leave it to the professionals, please.

Speaking of rescue centers, many of these feel-good accounts pose as actual rescue centers and ask people for donations and it can be even worse.

Some videos are actual cases of animal cruelty.

I'm not going to share these videos for obvious reasons, but there are social media accounts who stage videos where animals are intentionally exposed to life-threatening situations so that they can be rescued by people posing as animal rescue groups or animal activists.

Yeah, the fake barnacle and turtle.

They were like literally gluing barnacles to turtles and they weren't even like they were they weren't even turtles.

They were like tortoises.

Ugh, I didn't realize how mad I was about this.

The creators of such videos exploit the emotions of animal lovers.

They deceive people with the videos and get them to become subscribers slash donors so that they can deceitfully get money.

As we've seen, this infuriates me.

Animal lovers are some of the most generous people I know.

Fans of my channel have raised tens of thousands of dollars for the animal rescue organizations I mentioned.

Cornish Seal Sanctuary, Monterey Bay Aquarium, Ocean Conservation Namibia, and most recently to help the Oregon Coast Aquarium to build a new marine mammal rescue center.

And the thought of exploiting this community of sea otter lovers, I just don't have words for it.

At least not words suitable for YouTube.

Some of it will have been cut out of this video.

Most legitimate animal rescue stories make the news.

Joey's Rescue made headline news in multiple countries.

If the story isn't corroborated by a trusted source, then it's likely fake.

So if you see a heartwarming animal story that seems suspicious or maybe too good to be true, take a closer look before sharing.

Check out who created the video and see if there's someone you trust.

Look for continuity errors.

Fact-check their claims, like if barnacles are bad for whales.

If it sounds too good to be true, simply do a couple Google searches and see what turns up.

It's fine.

Jojo, say hi.

I must cleanse this.