The river otter’s 54 Delaware records reach all three counties, led by Sussex, and they touch nearly every kind of water the state has, from tidal creeks along Delaware Seashore State Park to quiet inland ponds like Griffith Lake, Coursey Pond, and Abbotts Pond.
An animal that follows the fish
Otters live where fish, crayfish, frogs, and crabs are easy to catch, which in Delaware means tidal marsh channels, millponds, and slow Coastal Plain streams. They den in bank burrows and abandoned beaver or muskrat lodges, and a family may travel miles in a night, crossing land freely between waterways. The broad managed impoundments at Bombay Hook and Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuges are among the better places to look.
No off season
River otters stay active through winter, swimming under ice and hauling out to slide on snow or mud, so sightings arrive in every month. Small rises come in late winter and early fall, times when a female is still traveling with nearly grown young and the group covers more ground. An otter gives itself away without being seen, leaving slides, webbed tracks, and spraint along muddy banks.
Status in Delaware
NatureServe ranks the river otter S4, Apparently Secure, in Delaware, and it is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here. Across its range the species has recovered strongly from the trapping and water pollution that once reduced it.
