River otters turn up in 253 New Hampshire records, a modest tally next to the squirrels and raccoons but spread through all ten counties, from Coos County in the far north down to the Seacoast. The map follows water, which is exactly what an otter’s life requires.
Built for moving water
An otter hunts by swimming, chasing fish, crayfish, frogs, and salamanders with a streamlined body, closable ears and nostrils, and whiskers that read turbulence in dark water. New Hampshire’s records string along the state’s connected rivers, ponds, and beaver flowages: the Souhegan watershed sites near the top of the list, Morrill Pond Wildlife Management Area, the marshes behind Great Bay National Wildlife Refuge, and streams through White Mountain National Forest. Where otters live, they advertise, rolling at grassy latrine sites and tobogganing down mud or snow on well-worn slides.
A winter animal, visibly
Counts crest in November, January, and March, not because otters are more numerous then but because they are easier to read. Otters stay active all winter, fishing open water below dams and riffles, and fresh snow registers their tracks and belly slides in a way a summer shoreline never does.
Status in New Hampshire
NatureServe ranks the North American river otter S5, Secure, in New Hampshire, and the species is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
