Otter: Encyclopedia II - Otter - Species

Otter - Species

Otter - Northern River Otter

The northern river otter (Lontra canadensis) was one of the major animals hunted and trapped for fur in North America after contact with Europeans. They are one of the most playful and active, making them a popular exhibit in zoos and aquaria, but unwelcome on agricultural land because they alter river banks for access, sliding, and defense. River otters eat a variety of fish and shellfish, as well as small land mammals and birds. They are 1 m (3 to 4 feet) in length and weigh from 5 to 15 kg (10 to 30 pounds). They were once found all over North America, but are rare or extinct in most places, although flourishing in some locations.

Otters are a protected species in some areas and some places have otter sanctuaries. These sanctuaries help ill and injured otters to recover.

Otter - Sea Otter

The sea otter Enhydra lutris is found along the Pacific coast of North America. Their historic range included shallow waters of the Bering Strait and Kamchatka, and as far south as Japan. Sea otters have some 200,000 hairs per square cm of skin, a rich fur for which they were hunted almost to extinction. By the time they were protected under the 1911 Fur Seal Treaty, there were so few sea otters left that the fur trade had become unprofitable.

Sea otters eat shellfish and other invertebrates (especially clams, abalone, and sea urchins ), and are frequently observed using rocks as crude tools to smash open shells. They are 1 to 2 m (2.5 to 6 feet) in length and weigh 30 kg (25 to 60 pounds). Although once near extinction, they have begun to spread again starting from the California coast.

Unlike most marine mammals (seals, for example, or whales), sea otters do not have a layer of insulating blubber. As with other species of otter, they rely on air pockets trapped in their fur.

Otter - Maxwell's Otter

A sub-species of otter Lutrogale perspicillata maxwelli (named 'Maxwell's Otter' after British naturalist Gavin Maxwell and the subject of his book Ring of Bright Water) is thought to have lived in the Tigris-Euphrates alluvial salt marsh of Iraq. It has been suggested that this may have become extinct as a result of the large scale drainage that has taken place since the 1960s.

Otter - European Otter

Otters are also found in Europe. In the United Kingdom they were common as recently as the 1950s, but are now rare due to the former use of chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides and as a result of habitat loss. Numbers reached a low point in the 1980s, but with the aid of a number of initiatives, by 1999 numbers were estimated to have recovered to just below 1,000 animals. Under the UK Biodiversity Action Plan it is hoped that by 2010 the otter will have been reintroduced to all the UK rivers and coastal areas that it inhabited in 1960. Roadkill deaths are now one of the significant threats to their reintroduction.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Species", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki