Eric Ste Marie was out for a normal morning walk until he noticed something furry headed toward the Ambassador Bridge.
Ste Marie, a 27-year-old PhD student at the University of Windsor, is a curious nature lover. She ran to follow the creature along the Ontario shoreline and captured video of her lanky body plunging into the Detroit River.
The creature was too large to be a common muskrat or mink. Its long tail was tapered, not flat like a beaver’s.
That’s when Ste Marie and her partner, who had encouraged the April 26 outing, realized what they had seen: a river otter, a species that experts say was expelled from the Detroit area a century ago. by pollution, urbanization and overzealous hunters.
“I was so excited,” Ste Marie said. “My partner and I were stunned because we were seeing this otter, but we didn’t think it was going to be as big of a deal as it ended up being.”
The Ste Marie video is the first documentation. of a river otter in the Detroit River in a century, said John Hartig, a Detroit Riverfront Conservancy board member and former manager of the Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge. Hartig wrote about Ste Marie’s discovery for the public television show. great lakes now.
River otters were extirpated, or regionally extinct, from the Detroit area in the early 20th century after a century of intense hunting and trapping, he said.
“I spoke with a historian from the Monroe County Historical Museum and he told me that the last report they had for this region, the Detroit River and western Lake Erie, was in the early 20th century,” Hartig said. “They’re gone, and they’ve been gone for a long time.”
It’s a “thrill” that one has returned, he said.
“It’s really cool,” he said. “It’s encouraging. It’s evidence that our pollution control and prevention programs are working. But we’re not done yet, we have big challenges ahead,” such as climate change and polluted runoff.
Unlike other Midwestern states, otter populations have remained strong in central and northern Michigan, said Adam Bump, a fur specialist with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. Michigan has otter catch seasons throughout the state.
Still, the creatures are slowly making their way into the Detroit area as water quality improves.
People have reported seeing otters in northern Monroe County, southern Wayne County and Lenawee County, Bump said, but he is not aware of any sightings in the Detroit River in recent history. And certainly no photos.
Otters belong to the mustelid family along with other tube-shaped mammals such as weasels and minks. They spend most of their time in lakes and rivers eating aquatic animals such as crabs and fish. They grow 3 to 4 feet long, are fast and flexible, and have clawed feet.
They are exceptional hunters, which gives them time to be exceptionally playful.
“They are such good predators of aquatic species that they have time to do other things,” Bump said. “They don’t have to focus all their energy and time on gathering food like other species do.”
Prey availability appears to be the main thing that draws otters to a stream, Bump said. They also like streams with good water quality and a nearby terrestrial habitat where they can make dens.
Those conditions are returning to the Detroit River, which underwent “dramatic change” in the past three centuries after settlers arrived and ushered in eras of logging, manufacturing, urbanization and pollution.
“Now, the water quality is better, you have wooded areas, you have conditions that are suitable for otter,” Bump said. “It just takes a while for populations to expand, and once they expand, it takes a while for them to be abundant enough for people to actually see them.”
Ste Marie’s discovery of an otter is a sign that the creatures could one day be common. If that otter has a mate, they may have offspring that are used to living in an urban area. And those babies might grow up not to be so wary of two-legged viewers.
“I think their ability to learn and adapt to human presence increases,” Bump said. “They start to be more willing to go to built-up areas, more willing to be seen going down a river, and they understand that ‘as long as people stand there looking at me, I don’t have to worry about them.’ You see that progression, and I think it’s probably learned behavior.”
Ste Marie, who saw the otter last week, said she hopes other people who visit the Detroit River will be on the lookout for otters. Sightings of rare creatures help wildlife ecologists understand their current range, she said.
“I’m never going to stop looking for otters when I walk down the river,” Ste Marie said. “I think it’s a very good sign that the area and the local ecosystem are healing, that we see an animal like an otter that is usually quite sensitive.
“It means the Detroit River is probably getting cleaned up and the efforts of local conservation groups in the Detroit and Windsor area are being effective. I hope we’ll see more otters and other animals that we don’t see here anymore but were traditionally in these waters.” “.
Reference-www.detroitnews.com