Fish, crabs, oysters-we write about them often, but today’s topic is otters. Playful, cute, and equally at home on land or water (much like our readers, perhaps), otters are small brown mammals found throughout the Chesapeake watershed.
High-energy and fun to watch, otters have webbed feet and swim on their bellies paddling with all four limbs and steering with their long tails. Their thick, brown fur coat is generally lighter around the neck and stomach. Otters sleep in underground dens, but what’s really cool is that their dens have underwater entrances. And if that weren’t enough fun, they like to create mud slides to play on soft river banks. River otters, which are the type we have in our area, are distinguishable from their larger cousins, sea otters, who almost always stay in saltwater, swim mostly on their backs, and are awkward on land.
River otters grow to approximately 30 inches long and weigh 18 to 25 pounds. They live in rivers, of course, but they’re also comfortable in marshes and on land. Although we generally think of them frolicking in the water, they’re capable of traveling a mile or more cross country. Otters eat fish, crabs, crawfish, and small mammals, and on Tangier Island, and probably elsewhere, they’ve even been known to go after the soft crab holding tanks of local watermen. Listen to a humorous podcast describing their antics at wypr.org.
Otters reproduce in litters of two to four pups, which are usually born in the spring. After about six months, pups will be ready to leave their dens. Large birds of prey are one of their few predators. In nature an otter’s lifespan is about eight years, but they can live much longer in captivity. A group of otters may be called a romp, family, or bevy, and when the group is in the water, it’s sometimes called a raft.
Otters, like many species in the Bay’s watershed, once had a very large population, which was threatened by human activities such as unregulated trapping, loss of wetlands, pollution, and logging and mining in Western Maryland and Pennsylvania. Thanks to regulations on trapping and reintroduction in some areas, otters are no longer endangered.
Friday, November 18, 2016 - 08:30
Fish, crabs, oysters-we write about them often, but today’s topic is otters. Playful, cute, and equally at home on land or water (much like our readers, perhaps), otters are small brown mammals found throughout the Chesapeake watershed.
High-energy and fun to watch, otters have webbed feet and swim on their bellies paddling with all four limbs and steering with their long tails. Their thick, brown fur coat is generally lighter around the neck and stomach. Otters sleep in underground dens, but what’s really cool is that their dens have underwater entrances. And if that weren’t enough fun, they like to create mud slides to play on soft river banks. River otters, which are the type we have in our area, are distinguishable from their larger cousins, sea otters, who almost always stay in saltwater, swim mostly on their backs, and are awkward on land.
River otters grow to approximately 30 inches long and weigh 18 to 25 pounds. They live in rivers, of course, but they’re also comfortable in marshes and on land. Although we generally think of them frolicking in the water, they’re capable of traveling a mile or more cross country. Otters eat fish, crabs, crawfish, and small mammals, and on Tangier Island, and probably elsewhere, they’ve even been known to go after the soft crab holding tanks of local watermen. Listen to a humorous podcast describing their antics at wypr.org.
Otters reproduce in litters of two to four pups, which are usually born in the spring. After about six months, pups will be ready to leave their dens. Large birds of prey are one of their few predators. In nature an otter’s lifespan is about eight years, but they can live much longer in captivity. A group of otters may be called a romp, family, or bevy, and when the group is in the water, it’s sometimes called a raft.
Otters, like many species in the Bay’s watershed, once had a very large population, which was threatened by human activities such as unregulated trapping, loss of wetlands, pollution, and logging and mining in Western Maryland and Pennsylvania. Thanks to regulations on trapping and reintroduction in some areas, otters are no longer endangered.