OutdoorNebraska

S ometimes efforts to restore wildlife populations decimated by habitat loss or overharvest by the pioneers who settled this country succeed, and sometimes they don't. The reintroduction of the northern river otter to Nebraska and other Midwestern states that were, for the most part, devoid of this playful mammal for much of the past century, is one of these success stories. Extirpated by 1920 in Nebraska, recent studies and nearly three decades of surveys to track the range and population expansion of river otters following reintroduction efforts that began here in 1986 have found otters swimming in nearly all of our major rivers. The growth has been so successful, that the river otter could soon be removed from the list of Nebraska's threatened species. The fi rst of the reintroduced otter, an individual provided by Idaho, was released on the South Loup River in Custer County in January of 1986. By 1991, 159 otters, most acquired from Louisiana or Alaska, had been released there and at six other sites on the Platte, North Platte, Calamus, Cedar, Elkhorn and Niobrara rivers. Following the releases, little work was done to study the animal apart from tracking their expansion. But recently, biologists wanted to know more about their home range, survival, dispersal and habitat needs of otters here in the Northern Prairie region of the Great Plains, where little such research into the species had been conducted. What they learned is that otters have thrived in Nebraska, and their numbers in one study area along the Platte River are among the highest ever recorded in the country. "If you look at maps from 1970, much of the Midwest was basically devoid of otters," said Sam Wilson, carnivores and furbearers program manager for Nebraska Game and Parks. "This is a rare type of success that you can have an animal that's done so well after being completely gone for so long." ● 2014 Annual Report • Nebraska Game and Parks Commission 9 River Otters: A Conservation Success Story

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