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Slip-sliding away — river otters
Last updated on Wednesday, January 01, 2003
"Splash!" A sleek, chocolate brown form slides down a slippery mud bank into a southwestern stream. "Splash!" Another sleek form belly-flops on the mudslide and follows the first into the water. The two river otters chase one another underwater, looping and turning and tumbling.
River otters are the Southwest's water acrobats. These graceful animals swim right side up, upside down, on their side, or any way they choose. River otters can undulate like fish, using their heavy tail as a rudder. They can execute sudden U-turns, dive as deep as 40 feet, and race one another. These playful animals make slides in muddy or icy streambanks by loping up the bank, flopping on their belly, then sliding with a "splash" into the water. River otters are gregarious animals, and are usually seen in pairs or family groups.
River otters are made for water. Their long body - up to three feet, including a foot or more of tail - is covered in thick, water-repellent, chocolate brown fur. Their short, strong legs end in webbed toes for better propulsion. Nostrils and ears that close underwater help river otters remain submerged for several minutes. Their dense coat of oily underfur keeps them warm even in near-freezing water.
River otters are predators. They use their speed and aquatic agility to chase and catch fish, frogs, turtles, crayfish, and other aquatic life.
River otters once swam in rivers and streams throughout the Southwest. But in the early 1800s, otter and beaver fur came into fashion for hats. The demand for pelts was so great that by 1840, trappers had nearly exterminated beaver and river otters throughout the whole West. (In 1825, for instance, during a two-week trapping spree on the San Francisco River in Southwestern New Mexico, trapper James Ohio Pattie boasted that he and his six colleagues trapped one thousand beaver.) Even if river otters had survived fur trapping, their habitat was seriously degraded by the removal of beaver. (Beaver ponds and dams help keep river flows stable and clean of sediment, crucial conditions for otter survival.) Thoughtless mining, logging, and overgrazing followed fur trapping, also drastically affecting rivers and streams, and thus, river otter habitat. By the mid-1900s, river otters had nearly vanished from the Southwest.
These days, the best place to see river otters in the southern Southwest is at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson, Arizona, where a pair of river otters swims and plays in a specially-built desert "river." Wild river otter habitat remains in short supply, limited by pollution, water withdrawal, and streamside development.
But there is hope yet for these playful aquabats. As we restore more and more Southwest rivers and streams, rivers otters will return to chase fish, splash, and play.
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