otterfamily | Entries tagged with media

Saw otters last night at Trinidad for the first time in 23 months. What made the evening doubly special was that I was there to meet up with the fellow who first introduced me to Trinidad 31 years ago: Kent Reeves. He and his wife Heidi both looked terrific. As icing on the cake, also there was my first major professor at Humboldt State: Dr. Archie Mossman, and his wife, Dr. Sue Lee. It was quite a reunion!

Before the meetup, I got to see two otters: first, a young adult male, and then briefly an adult female made an appearance. I took some video of an aggressive encounter between the two. It was just like the old days: tussling, screaming, then the one who was attacked (the male) treading water and making a lot of splashing and fuss. Some things never change! I haven't watched the video yet; if it's any good I'll edit this post and embed it here later on.

Although otters aren't a part of my life anymore, I still have dreams fairly often in which I'm studying them. I do miss that, I must admit. I don't miss the heartache, though. All those losses from years ago are still significantly impacting me and my life. The tragic way things ended pretty much destroyed me. I don't think I'll ever be quite the same person as I was back then.

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The newly reconstructed Trinidad Pier opened to the public at the beginning of July. I visited it for the first time yesterday evening.

The design is attractive and functional. The railings are all aluminum, and the deck is a continuous solid slab of concrete that slopes slightly downward from west to east and from south to north to allow for drainage.

The ramp leading down to the floating dock.

It's supposedly wheelchair-accessible, but someone would have to be very strong indeed to keep an occupied wheelchair from gaining too much momentum and getting out of control on this long, steep slope.

The new pilings are steel, coated with a non-reactive polymer.

Look at how thin that angled white PVC drain pipe is. That's going to get swamped fast in a downpour.

A great deal of strength would likewise be required to push a person in a wheelchair up this ramp.

The lights come on automatically as dusk approaches.

The commercial section of the pier.

So now, not only is my otter family gone, so is the entire old pier from where I made all of my observations. Every physical trace of my former life with otters is now vanished off the face of the earth...

I didn't see any of the beasts yesterday evening, but I ran into one of my old otter-spotter friends, and she reported that she has seen the otters often this summer; as many as 10 in one group. Based upon some of her behavioral descriptions, I think it's highly likely that Slick is still alive! Excellent news! I really wish I could visit Trinidad more often, but I'm poor as a churchmouse now, and there's no way I can afford to make the trip, even just once a month. Hopefully, I'll get to see some otters sometime this summer. It's been almost a year since my last sighting.

I saw a family of 6 otters this evening! Here's a short video of 5 of them swimming toward the pier:

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That's the elder matriarch at front left, an adult daughter at her side, and three pups of the year behind the females. (I don't know if they are all the old mother's or a combining of two females' litters.) The sixth individual was Slick, who had already come over to the pier by himself about a minute earlier. :3

This otter almost looks like something out of the Pliocene to me. It's good news, anyway! :3

Click for the story.

Pictures of a true albino otter in the North of Scotland.

Photos by Karen Jack.

Story here.

Here's Little Mama inspecting my shoe.

My friend, Dan Lorey, captured the bigger picture.

Trinidad, California, August 15, 2003.

Little Mama, July 2, 2004, during the last summer of her life...

click image to enlarge

Photo by my friend Alon D. Karpovsky.

Over last night, I upgraded all of the photos on my "official" website, An Otter Family Album. For some time, I've wanted to make the pictures larger, and do away with the unsightly (and now unnecessary) copyright watermarks. Overall, I think the visual appeal of the site is significantly improved.

I'm surprised to discover that the Family Album is now the #8-ranked site on Google for the search term "otters." I remember a few months after I launched Otters.net in 2001, I couldn't find it at all via Google. I still don't think many people read it, though. I only get maybe a dozen email inquiries a year from the site. I'm glad it's easier to find in searches now, anyway.

I saw otters at Trinidad this evening! It's been exactly one year to the day since I last saw them.

All summer long, I have been receiving reports from reliable witnesses that there was an otter family in the bay again. Unfortunately, I no longer have reliable transportation, so I have been unable to go see them myself. Despite the fact that my car was acting up as bad as ever yesterday, though, I decided to tempt fate for one evening and make the drive up to Trinidad anyway.

It was just like the old days! The minute I stepped onto the pier, I saw a family of six in a tight formation swimming over from the headland. There was a mom and three babies, plus two yearling-sized 'satellite' individuals. It looked like a typical multi-year family grouping that I've been used to seeing here since the late 1980s.

Here's a video of the family in the tide pools east of the pier, taken earlier this evening.

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Not having seen otters here for so long, the continuity of my observations has been completely disrupted, so I can only speculate who it was that I saw today. My best guess is that it was the mother I first saw in 2007, plus her three pups-of-the-year and the two yearlings born last year. All I can do is guess, though. I'm essentially just a clueless tourist here like anyone else now.

Whatever, it sure was great to see otters again! My life has hardly been worth living without them in it...

This is a photograph of a colored pencil drawing that used to hang in the main building of the "Otter Zentrum" in Hankensbüttel, Germany (Google Earth: 52 43'55.64 N, 10 37'11.69 E). I took the photo during my visit there for the V. International Otter Colloquium in September, 1989.

A rather attractive fellow, isn't he? I sure thought so. When I heard that the Otter Zentrum had been destroyed in an arson fire in December, 1993, the first thing I thought of was all the wonderful otter art there that must also have burned. So, the picture I took of this drawing is probably all that remains of it.

I wish the artist's name was legible. I also wish I knew the real story behind this artwork. I can't be certain, of course, but the "O.S" might stand for "Olympische Spiele;" German for "Olympic Games." Was this a concept drawing for a proposed Olympic mascot? Who knows?

I saw sleep-piles in person a handful of times. The most memorable instance was when a group of 5 males fell asleep in a sloppy pile on one of the boats in the harbor. There were big swells that day, but despite all the rocking and rolling, they all just drifted off to sleep as it they were safe and secure on terra firma. Seeing how at home they appeared, I somehow I got the feeling this wasn't the first time this bunch had caught 40 winks on that boat...

The first beer I ever homebrewed – a stout, actually...

I think this was late 1989 or early 1990. It didn't really taste all that good. Just kept this one bottle for old times' sake – and the nice label design. :-)