Otter

[pitw]

  I have never seen one within 150 miles of my house.  Buddy just called saying he found one dead in the ditch west of his house.  Pretty cool to think they may move in like elk and moose did.

[nastygunz]

We gots lots of em, pretty interesting critters!

[remrogers]

Have heard of them being in parts of Colorado and meet a fellow who caught twenty of them in Nevada. Didn't think of Nevada as having the habitat for them.

[Okanagan]

Flying across vast open tundra in Alaska in a small plane the pilot, who was a trapper, pointed out otter trails in the open snow, no trees or brush within many miles.  The otter trails were easy to spot and ID from the air, kind of a dot dot long dash where the otter would hop a couple of times to gain speed then slide for a long ways as he travelled.  Don't know if open tundra means otters would like your prairie country, pitw.  With your strips of creek willow etc. I assumed that you already had a good population of otters.  Interesting population shift going on up your way.

[Hawks Feather]

They showed up around here not all that long ago, but have been prolific enough that they were opened for trapping this year.  I watched a couple of them playing a couple of years ago when I was in my canoe on the river.  They are fun to watch.

[nastygunz]

 They can be pretty scrappy too, got a good set of chompers on them!

[pitw]

Anybody ever keep one for a pet/kinda/sorta?

[Okanagan]

Re otter pet:  BIL and I had one keep us company as we drifted the Dease River in a canoe one dawn looking for moose.  He would swim around us, kind of snuff his nose at us in a little snort, and stayed with us for over half a mile.

On Vancouver Island a mama otter and two young ones took station on shore about 30 feet from another fellow and I as we fished for cutthroat trout in a lake one morning.  We caught enough trout for breakfast and cooked them on the spot, but those critters were way better fish catchers than we were.  Once in awhile one of them would slip into the water and a  few seconds later come up with a nice sized trout and start munching on it from one end, like eating a carrot or banana.  Pretty critters with lush fur, nice to have around even if we seldom see them.

[nastygunz]

I dated a hippie girl back in the day named otter... Looking back I just realized that she could swim like hell and all she ever wanted to eat was fish sticks 

[FinsnFur]

Nasty WTF 

I ran into a flock?...A murder?...a swarm?...A litter? What do you call a family of Otter?
Well anyway...I was out with the kayak on the Mississippi here last summer and saw one hanging around on shore near some down trees. I slowly drifted in without any body movement in hopes to get a pic.
I got maybe 30 feet away and 6 more slowly and incredibly stealthily, popped there heads up out of the water in various places between me and the one I seen on shore...and and stared me down with some weird ass growls. 

It was like watching Navy seals emerge from the water approcaching Iwo Jima
Didnt take me long to get the hell out of there

[nastygunz]

 They don't seem overly afraid of people in my experience.