Tennessee’s river otter record, 462 sightings, runs along rivers and lakes the length of the state, from the mountain streams of Great Smoky Mountains National Park to the flat water of Reelfoot Lake.
A fisherman in a fur coat
The otter is a water animal with a fisherman’s habits, hunting fish, crayfish, and frogs by touch and sight and denning in bank burrows, root tangles, and old beaver works. It needs clean, fish-bearing water and quiet banks, which is why its Tennessee records follow river corridors and managed wetlands, through places like Cherokee National Forest and the managed lands of Chuck Swan State Forest and Cheatham Wildlife Management Area. Rutherford, Blount, and Sevier counties hold the largest counts.
Most visible when the water is coldest
Otters do not hibernate and keep hunting straight through winter, and Tennessee’s record peaks in January and February and again in October and November. The quietest stretch is April and May, when young otters born in early spring are still held close to the den and the adults that attend them stay near home water.
Status in Tennessee
NatureServe ranks the river otter S3, Vulnerable, in Tennessee. The species is native, but it was trapped out of much of the state by the mid-twentieth century, and reintroductions led by the state wildlife agency beginning in the 1980s helped return it to rivers statewide. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous in Tennessee.
