Slowly but steadily I have been checking off my list of local animals to see. I got another one in the last week....twice. The cute little furbearer in the photo here is a Northern River Otter. These guys once inhabited most of the continental U.S. But like others, they were hunted, trapped and squeezed out of available habitat by their main predator....man (including woman I'm sure).
In many parts of the U.S. they have been reintroduced, waterway by waterway....including Tennessee.
I saw this guy (or girl) while fishing on the Caney Fork River a week ago, but I didn't have my camera. I went fishing again a couple of days ago and specifically took my camera just in case I saw him again. I didn't take my big camera with the telephoto lens because I was afraid that if I slipped in the stream that the camera would be drowned. So I put my smaller camera in a double zip lock bag in my fishing vest. I might survive a dunking in 40 degree water, but I am sure that a camera wouldn't. Sure enough I saw him again in just about the same spot along the shore. I had to blow up the picture quite a bit so it isn't crystal clear, but it is about as good as I expected to get of a wild otter.
Otters are about 3-4 feet long including their tail which is about one third of that, so they are much larger than their cousins, weasels, mink, and skunks. They are generally solitary animals except for mothers with young. They primarily eat fish and crayfish. Sources that I have read say they eat mostly non-game fish like suckers, but I am sure that trout are also on their menu.
River otter...check mark. Now if I can only get a picture of red and grey foxes, bobcats, and wild boar.
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