Vermont’s river otter record, 461 records in all, reads like a tour of the state’s wet places. Chittenden County’s Lake Champlain shore and tributaries lead, and the named sites are nearly all wetlands, from the Wenlock and Dead Creek wildlife management areas to the marshes of Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge.
A hunter built for cold water
An otter makes its living underwater, coursing after fish, crayfish, and frogs with a streamlined body and a rudder tail. It dens in bank burrows, hollow logs, and abandoned beaver lodges, and it announces itself less by sightings than by sign: slides worn into muddy banks and snow, and latrines of scat left on points and logs along the shore.
No off season
Otters do not hibernate, and Vermont’s winter counts stay steady, since they fish under the ice and keep breathing holes open on ponds and slow rivers. The year’s strongest months are March and April, when pairs travel and ice breakup concentrates open water, with a second rise in November as family groups move and the first new ice funnels activity back to the open channels.
Status in Vermont
NatureServe ranks the North American river otter S5, Secure, in Vermont, and the species is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
