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Gone again
Jun. 27th, 2007 01:32 amUnfortunately, I haven't seen the new family in 3 weeks. It's clear to me now that the mother's not going to raise her pup here at the harbor; she's obviously gone back to wherever it was she came from. I'm so disappointed. For 8 all-too-short days, I had genuine hopes that this would turn out to be a normal summer, with a new mother and babies in the bay, but that wasn't to be. Now, even the males are gone again. It's the last week of June, and there are no otters here. That always feels so eerie, going there this time of year and not seeing them or their sign anywhere.
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I don't usually process my research videos until I finish filling up a tape, but I went ahead and extracted the single clip I was able to take of the new family and put it up on YouTube so I could at least prove their existence to you:
That was taken June 6, my 24th anniversary of seeing my first otter here. I hope it won't be the last time I get to see an otter baby, but just in case it is, at least I have a video remembrance of those few precious moments...
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For the first time, the tribe that owns the pier has assigned a security guard to patrol the place overnight. (It's about time!) Anyway, I quickly befriended Billy and got him interested in the otters. So far, he's only seen the critters once, but that one observation of his might turn out to be the single most important discovery of the year.
At 2:45AM on the 14th, Billy saw two adult-sized otters run up from the boat launcher's beach, then run across the parking lot toward Trinidad State Beach. The arrow shows the route of what could only have been the 2 males.
This is such an ingenious shortcut because it makes it possible for the harbor otters to get to State Beach much quicker and with much less metabolic cost than if they had to swim around the entire perimeter of Trinidad Head. I've long suspected that the otters could do this, but I had zero evidence that they actually did do this until Billy saw it the other night. For the next week, there were no new scats on the dock, kind of proving in reverse that the males were away.
The males leaving together for State Beach and staying there also suggests to me that that is where the new mother is from, and where she and her pup are now. Unfortunately, the expanse of State Beach makes it almost impossible to track them there. That's a dangerous place to raise a baby otter, though. Many otters have died from dog attacks on State Beach over the years. Not that Trinidad harbor isn't dangerous, but at least here, they can minimize their contact with people and dogs...
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I don't usually process my research videos until I finish filling up a tape, but I went ahead and extracted the single clip I was able to take of the new family and put it up on YouTube so I could at least prove their existence to you:
That was taken June 6, my 24th anniversary of seeing my first otter here. I hope it won't be the last time I get to see an otter baby, but just in case it is, at least I have a video remembrance of those few precious moments...
----------
For the first time, the tribe that owns the pier has assigned a security guard to patrol the place overnight. (It's about time!) Anyway, I quickly befriended Billy and got him interested in the otters. So far, he's only seen the critters once, but that one observation of his might turn out to be the single most important discovery of the year.
At 2:45AM on the 14th, Billy saw two adult-sized otters run up from the boat launcher's beach, then run across the parking lot toward Trinidad State Beach. The arrow shows the route of what could only have been the 2 males.
This is such an ingenious shortcut because it makes it possible for the harbor otters to get to State Beach much quicker and with much less metabolic cost than if they had to swim around the entire perimeter of Trinidad Head. I've long suspected that the otters could do this, but I had zero evidence that they actually did do this until Billy saw it the other night. For the next week, there were no new scats on the dock, kind of proving in reverse that the males were away.
The males leaving together for State Beach and staying there also suggests to me that that is where the new mother is from, and where she and her pup are now. Unfortunately, the expanse of State Beach makes it almost impossible to track them there. That's a dangerous place to raise a baby otter, though. Many otters have died from dog attacks on State Beach over the years. Not that Trinidad harbor isn't dangerous, but at least here, they can minimize their contact with people and dogs...
