OutdoorNebraska

y kayak was leaking. I'd paddled over 900 miles of Nebraska's rivers, and dragging over sand and rocks for much of it, the molding beneath my seat was beginning to crack through. It takes a lot of river miles to wear through the hull of a boat. In my case, it took even more miles to find a river otter on Nebraska's rivers. River otters (Lontra canadensis) were once common animals in Nebraska, but by the early 1900s, unregulated fur trapping and changing land and water use practices had taken their toll, and the species was considered extirpated in the state. The otter was reintroduced into Nebraska's rivers through a project beginning in 1986. Currently, the species is listed as a Tier-1 at-risk species, and is considered threatened in Nebraska. After nearly a century of absence in the state, reports began to surface once again, primarily from fur trappers that encountered otters as they targeted other species. Not long after releasing otters, the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission (NGPC) began to systematically survey bridge sites in the winter for signs of them. UNL also investigated river otters and preliminary results indicated otters were spreading throughout the state, establishing home ranges, occurring locally at high densities, and experiencing low mortality rates. In the next chapter of this conservation success story, NGPC is faced with the task of working toward removing the river otter from the list of threatened species in Nebraska. This task is not taken lightly. Removing a species from a protected status must only be done when it has viable and sustainable population levels found in multiple locations of suitable habitat. My task was to determine how widely distributed otters had become in the state since they were reintroduced. Learning just how widely distributed this elusive, aquatic mammal currently was could only be accomplished one way. I set about kayaking the state's navigable rivers and documenting all signs of otter, which includes tracks, scat and of course actually seeing an otter. It took me 900 miles to finally see an otter! There was not just one, but two otter pups from the spring! They came and went unceremoniously. They poked their heads up through an algae mat, made a gesture I can only describe as laughing at me, and then they were gone. I used these data as well as otter records from fur trappers to build distribution models and provide a crucial piece to the otter conservation puzzle. I found otters were present across most of Nebraska, and now wildlife managers at NGPC will have to determine if otters are secure enough to no longer be considered "threatened" in Nebraska. Tracks made by an elusive river otter are cause for celebration for an otter researcher. It took 108 survey days of paddling to finally see river otters. Surveys were conducted in order to better understand the distribution of otters across the state. The estimated range of river otters is shown in orange (in the map below) based on the past 2 years of surveys, fur-trapping records, and analysis. ✔ In Search of the River Otter 4 OTTER PHOTO BY BOB GRIER, ALL OTHER PHOTOS BY NATHAN BIEBER By Nathan Bieber, Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, University of Nebraska–Lincoln 90 riv ov mu be be thr of thr bo ev a river otter on Nebraska's rivers B U y le p 00 miles o 90 M It took 108 survey days of paddling to finally see river otters. Surveys were conducted in order to better understand the distribution of otters across the state.

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