Notice that the otter jumped off the ice before the beaver attacked, which means, I think, that this otter had been attacked by beavers before and had no desire to tangle with one. However, I don't think this was a typical otter (if such a thing exists.) I think he was one of the two pups I saw in the fall with their mother, as late as December. In January I saw no otter slides in the snow, which is not unprecedented, especially since the nearby river did not freeze up as usual. Then in late January I found the body of a dead female pup in the snow beside one of the ponds. Throughout February I kept seeing hints that an otter was around, a few prints but no slides, swimming under the ice but no sign an otter came on top of the ice. Then in March I began seeing this one timid otter who unlike other otters that seem to go all over the place in March, was content to stay put. So I think it might be the brother of the otter who died, probably of starvation. They had been abandoned by their mother (or she was trapped by a "sportsman,") and only this pup survived.

In general most state supported scientific studies of wildlife species that are hunted and trapped must be read very critically to correct a bias inherent in such studies. Most states boast that fees from sportsmen go to support such research. And with state politicians looking over their shoulder, scientists do not neglect an opportunity to report research results congenial to the idea the hunting and trapping do no harm and may even be beneficial to the speicies victimized. I've seen a study suggesting that otter pups can be independent of their mother at five months. This is nonsense. In my experience families stay together at least to the end of January, when the pups are 8 to 9 months old, and maybe for a whole year.

Lets return to an otter's upbringing, not only to correct the misimpression that trapping them in November, which is legal where I live, does not jeopardize whole otter families if a mother is taken, but also to correct the impression given by the video clip on this page that otters are timid by nature.

The pups on the next page, that I saw on September 30, were probably a little over five months old. Judge for yourself if they seem able to live alone and whether they would be worthy trophies for a sportsman in 45 days when otter trapping season opened: page33