The Outdoors

By Scott Rall, Outdoors Columnist

When is the last time you saw an animal or other creature that you may have never seen or at least haven’t seen for a very long time? This happened to me last winter and again just a few weeks ago. I was rambling around in Nobles County and saw a river otter. He/she was sitting on the ice near an area of open water. My passing on the road immediately sent it into the deep and even though I waited for 30 minutes I never saw it again.

Otters are a protected species and can only be trapped or otherwise possessed during the normal trapping season that runs from Nov. 2-May 15 in Minnesota.

They are certainly a rare sight in my neck of the woods and I became curious as to why they might be moving back into my area or if this was just one really lost soul. I made a few calls and the first one was to our local conservation officer. He shared with me that there had been a few incidental catches of these mammals by trappers in our area. They are still pretty rare and require a trapper to do several things in order to stay in line with current trapping regulations.

The limit for any trapper in Minnesota is four otter per season. You can request a special tag that must be used if you trap one of these animals. They hand out very few tags, as they are not common to southwest Minnesota. If you don’t request a permit tag and then catch an otter it must be handed over to the conservation officer.

These animals are so amazing. They occupied most of the main waterways across North America. Most of the current populations of otters are in Canada. They use holes dug by other animals, like a beaver and make a den where the female on her own will rase the litter of 1-5 babies. They eat fish and other things like frogs, salamanders, crayfish and other available prey.

Even though they are called a river otter they live in lots of other places that are not rivers. Any body of water that has the correct amount of suitable cover and food might well be the residence of a river otter. They are not a species of concern, meaning that their populations are stable enough not to warrant concern for their ability to produce populations large enough to sustain their populations. They fall into the category of species of least concern. They were in many regions of their original ranges, for all practical purposes, wiped out. There have been many successful reintroduction efforts across North America to help them re-establish in areas where they no longer existed.

Otter don’t normally cause many problems. There are a few exceptions. They can be a pain in and around fish hatcheries and other aqua-culture farming sites. They can in rare cases impact native fish populations in areas where certain fish will concentrate in high numbers during spawning activities. Of the fish they eat, perch, suckers and catfish make up most of their diet. They have been known to eat mice and other small mammals if they get the chance.

Pollution is probably the biggest limiting factor for river otters. They need high water quality to sustain an adequate food supply and enough quality habitat that they can depend on. Oil spills or water contamination from mining can degrade the water to a point where the prey an otter relies on can no longer flourish. With the decline of the food source so go the decline of otter populations.

As with almost all fish and game harvesting, a certain percentage of the animals during a hunting or trapping season has little to no effect on long-term populations. Hunting rooster pheasants for example has zero effect on overall long-term pheasant populations. The hens cannot be taken and there are always enough roosters to breed every hen every spring. Habitat and weather are the limiting factor.

The same can be said for just about every creature in nature. As the human population degrades and reduces the amount of habitat available to wildlife their populations will rise and fall accordingly. Wildlife continues to be condensed into smaller and smaller ranges as we the human population strive for more progress.

I, for one, think the river otter is one cool animal. It would be so cool if we could see them in the wild on more than just the rarest occasions. Whether this becomes an everyday thing or stays an unusual highlight on a wildlife ride is yet to be seen. I am guessing it will be the latter.

All nature needs is a place to be. A place to reproduce and rear their young. We cannot continue to crowd it into only spaces that are convenient for us. We all have a responsibility to care for God’s creatures. Please see what you can do in 2025 to help with that effort. If each of us does even just a little, maybe we can see more species of wildlife expanding instead of the other way around.

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If you have any questions, reach out to me at scottarall@gmail.com.