Otters make field trips memorable | ECOVIEWS

A river otter is one of the coolest mammals to find in the wild. On a recent walk in the woods, a friend and I went to look for one alongside a stream. We found a 15-foot-long muddy path from the top of a ridge into the creek — an otter slide. We did not see an otter, but the trip made me think of the first ones I ever saw in the wild. This was many years ago.

I had taken four students from the University of Georgia’s Savannah River Ecology Lab to explore a stream, just to see what we might find.

The stream was cold, but the July day was hot. We started in two vans, leaving one parked 5 miles downstream from where we would enter the stream. Because trees had fallen across the stream, rather than take canoes, we each had an inner tube. The idea was that each time we came to a log, we could throw our floats over, scramble over ourselves, and be on our way again.

As we started our trip, the water seemed rather cold, but the day was hot, so surely it would be merely refreshing once we got going. About 30 minutes later we had traveled only 200 yards, nowhere close to our van 5 miles downstream. The reason for the slow going? The inner tubes would carry us only a few feet before they had to be lifted over branches or big trees that lay across the stream.

The creek’s sandy bottom made walking easy, but we had to clamber over logs blocking the water far too often. We decided that walking and swimming and crawling over logs would be easier without inner tubes. I have no idea where they might be today. As the afternoon wore on, beneath a solid canopy of big oaks and other trees that totally shielded us from the sun, we all discovered that the water was not just cold, but very cold, even in July in the Deep South. No sunlight came through the trees. None. Sunny logs were not a rarity, they did not exist.

Having covered 3 miles in two hours, we came to a clearing where a railroad trestle crossed the creek. Five extremely cold and weary ecologists dragged themselves up onto the bank to bask in the sunlight. After 10 toasty minutes, I decided we should walk on land to our van and not go back into the water. I had overwhelming support for the decision, emphatically so from two shivering students who still had blue lips. It was the coldest water I had ever been in for so long a time, but the trip was worth it for me. Why? Because of what I had seen earlier.

I had gotten a bit ahead and was waiting for the others to catch up when I found a spot where the flowing water was only shin-deep. A glint of sunlight peeped through a large cypress tree and I began to remember what warmth was. I heard a splashing sound in front of me. Barely 6 feet away I saw a head pop up, and then another, and another. Baby otters! Three of them. They stood up in the shallow water and looked at me, turning their heads sideways in a quizzical manner, looking first at each other and then back at me. They were cuter than puppies.

I didn't move. Then an adult otter, I assume the mother, stood up behind the babies. They turned, gave her looks of what I truly believe were inquiry: What do we do, Mom? The young otters glanced at me then at her. She dove and all three babies followed immediately, diving gracefully in unison and disappearing into the deeper water. That made the trip worth it for me. Of course, since no one else saw the otters, I don't know what they might have found memorable about this cold water immersion experience, aside from the novelty of encountering bone-chilling cold in July on an ordinary summer day.

Whit Gibbons is professor of zoology and senior biologist at the University of Georgia’s Savannah River Ecology Laboratory. If you have an environmental question or comment, email ecoviews@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Otters make field trips memorable | ECOVIEWS