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The Daily Bucket: June's gang of otters [1]

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Date: 2022-07-07

One of the local River otters, on the floating dock

June 2022

Salish Sea, PacificNorthwest

Usually the River Otter presence in my local bay is one lone individual out fishing. Once in a while a mom comes through with her family of pups in tow. Also atypically, a gang of older otters will visit, and that’s when things can get lively.

According to field research work, it’s male otters who gang together, temporarily or longterm, to improve their fishing success (Sociality in river otters). Occasionally females will join them but generally they’re busy with youngsters.

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My in-person visits to the bay have been too intermittent to make any conclusions about otter activity this year, but months and months of trailcam footage on the dock over the past year have turned up considerably less otter action than seals (granted, the camera only captures one part of the dock, so I can’t be certain it’s been as quiet as that represents). However the past month of trailcam video indicates a group of 3-4 otters has been visiting regularly.

Their activity ranges from snoozing to grooming to wrestling. They also poop here, though their usual latrine is around the corner of the ramp, as well as on a neighboring dock.

Sometimes only one otter is visible at a time. This fellow was just chillin’.



Relaxed otter

Watching activity nearby

Grooming

Sleeping

When more than one otter is present, suddenly the action picks up.

Chasing

Wrestling

I stitched together a sequence of 10-second video clips the trailcam captures. As you can see, they spend a lot of their time on the dock grooming their magnificently luxuriant fur. They also do a lot of socializing — whenever we see more than one otter in view, there’s some pretty boisterous roughhousing, often interspersed with mutual grooming. They clearly aren’t “fighting” per se, although one appears to have a small laceration on the back of his neck. Otter teeth are sharp, especially among the younger ones.

Video over several different days, between May 31 and June 13:



It’s surprising to me how quiet they are for the most part, even at their rowdiest. You can hear thumping on the dock as they wrestle, and bird sound, but almost no otter vocalizations.

Look at how huge their tails are! Very muscular, otters use their tail for propulsion and as a rudder.

Then off they go, back into the water. One clip in the video has four otters at once.

I’ve had the trailcam set up on the dock for less than a year so I can’t report on whether this social behavior is more common at this season. Phenology observations have just begun!

Note: this dock is private but used by other boaters too, though unlike us, only in summer. I was wondering whether they’d mind having a camera set up out there, but no worries. At the last work party, people were pretty interested to learn what I’m seeing.



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Mostly sunny in the PNW islands. Calm wind. Temperatures in mid 60s.

WHAT’S UP IN NATURE IN YOUR AREA TODAY

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