River Otter

[balzaccom]

Despite the fact that we live in downtown Napa, this morning we were having breakfast when M noticed something odd in our fishpond--a great disturbance.  Water was splashing everywhere.  When we went out to investigate we found a river otter was dining on our goldfish sushi.... We chased him away...and he was back in five minutes.  Apparently the sushi was delicious.  Then we chased him away with more determination, and we think he headed back to the creek behind our house.  He'll probably return for thirds at some point...sigh.

[jay]

I can't really blame him, I like sushi, too!  

[ppine]

Very cool.  It is common to see them on river trips along with mink and beaver. 

My favorite otter memories were on the Klamath River in California near the Coast Range.  We saw families of them swimming under the boats.  On a raft trip, my brother brought his Dachshund a very large male.  He swam a rapid and was picked up and put back on the boat.  Then we drifted past a whole family of river otters on the bank.   They took one look at the Dachshund and all started scolding him for being on their river.  It was really funny at the time.