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otterfamilyIn my last posting, Oliver followed up with a comment speculating that "Probably, I hope, they have more female cousins up and down the coast, carrying on the same mitochondria as Old Mama." There's actually a fair possibility that's true. There was one–and only one–female from my study population over the last 20 years who I knew had dispersed and survived to adulthood.
Meet "One-Eye":
One-Eye was one of three females born to Old Mama in 1990, and the only survivor of that litter. When she became a yearling, her elder sister, Mama Junior, expelled her from the family territory. I don't know exactly where One-Eye went, but every once in a while in 1991 and 1992, the Trinidad family would go away for a few days, and while they were gone, One-Eye would suddenly show up here again. I speculated that the family must have travelled to wherever it was One-Eye was living in exile, so she had to come back here to escape from Junior.
The screenshot above was taken the very last time I saw One-Eye. She was then an adult of breeding age. Females finally understand the concept of territory at age 2, so it's no wonder I never saw One-Eye again. From then on, she would stand her ground against any female interloper. Then, starting in the mid-90s, some new males joined the Trinidad population, and interestingly, at least some of them had "the family resemblance," and I thought maybe, just maybe, they were either sons or grandsons of One-Eye.
Unfortunately, I don't have any evidence of there being another family group now on this stretch of coast. The last time a new male joined the local clan was 2 years ago, and the last stranger I noted in the area was a 1- to 2-year-old female I found dead on a nearby beach, also 2 years ago. She had the family resemblance, too. I felt very badly about that dead young female. By then, my own Little Mama had ceased her reproductive cycle, and Scoots: well, I never could count on her keeping her pups. Alive, that strange female at least presented some possibility that somewhere along the coast there might be another family group cranking out otter babies. But there's no evidence that is the case now. The closest known otter family now is at Patrick's Point, about 20 linear shoreline kilometers north of Trinidad - too far distant to be a source of new females for this stretch of coast in the near future.
(PS: One-Eye did, in fact, have two eyes. It's just that when she was a youngster, she injured the cornea of her left eye which turned a milky white for several weeks. That became her most identifiable feature, and instead of calling her "The pup with one white eye," I just called her "One-Eye" for short.)
Meet "One-Eye":
One-Eye was one of three females born to Old Mama in 1990, and the only survivor of that litter. When she became a yearling, her elder sister, Mama Junior, expelled her from the family territory. I don't know exactly where One-Eye went, but every once in a while in 1991 and 1992, the Trinidad family would go away for a few days, and while they were gone, One-Eye would suddenly show up here again. I speculated that the family must have travelled to wherever it was One-Eye was living in exile, so she had to come back here to escape from Junior.
The screenshot above was taken the very last time I saw One-Eye. She was then an adult of breeding age. Females finally understand the concept of territory at age 2, so it's no wonder I never saw One-Eye again. From then on, she would stand her ground against any female interloper. Then, starting in the mid-90s, some new males joined the Trinidad population, and interestingly, at least some of them had "the family resemblance," and I thought maybe, just maybe, they were either sons or grandsons of One-Eye.
Unfortunately, I don't have any evidence of there being another family group now on this stretch of coast. The last time a new male joined the local clan was 2 years ago, and the last stranger I noted in the area was a 1- to 2-year-old female I found dead on a nearby beach, also 2 years ago. She had the family resemblance, too. I felt very badly about that dead young female. By then, my own Little Mama had ceased her reproductive cycle, and Scoots: well, I never could count on her keeping her pups. Alive, that strange female at least presented some possibility that somewhere along the coast there might be another family group cranking out otter babies. But there's no evidence that is the case now. The closest known otter family now is at Patrick's Point, about 20 linear shoreline kilometers north of Trinidad - too far distant to be a source of new females for this stretch of coast in the near future.
(PS: One-Eye did, in fact, have two eyes. It's just that when she was a youngster, she injured the cornea of her left eye which turned a milky white for several weeks. That became her most identifiable feature, and instead of calling her "The pup with one white eye," I just called her "One-Eye" for short.)
