June 2007 - Volume 68, Issue 6
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Missouri's River Otter Saga continued...
Almost overnight, the Conservation Department had gone from hero to goat for its “successful” otter restoration program.
In search of balance
We initiated our first regulated trapping season in 1996 to help bring balance back to the state’s rivers and ponds. Despite two court cases forced by two national animal rights groups, we have had annual trapping seasons ever since. Missouri trappers are the backbone of our management efforts to restore some balance to the otter population.
By 1998, however, we realized that the two-month-long trapping season wasn’t enough, so we formed a citizen advisory committee to help find a solution. The committee, composed of otter enthusiasts, anglers, county commissioners, an animal rights activist, fisheries and wildlife biologists, stream ecologists, crayfish experts, university professors, graduate students, a trapper and a few local business owners, worked together to tackle the problem.
After two long years of looking at data, taking field trips to farm ponds, wading along streams searching for otter latrines and fish parts, and wrangling over their varied interests, the team agreed on a compromise.
Otter management zones now protect otters in low-density areas with a limited otter harvest, and they provide much-needed relief in the Ozarks by adding a full month to the trapping season with no limit. This helps us to direct the most intensive trapping pressure where it is most needed, and it allows a sustainable harvest of otters in other areas where we want otter populations to remain stable.
Current status
Our management goal is to use regulated trapping to maintain healthy otter populations within the tolerance levels of both habitats and people.
In the Ozark streams where the problems are the most severe, our goal is to reduce otter populations to the level where we can improve quality sport fish populations.
Thanks to the current high market prices ($40 to $120) for otter pelts, trappers have been very helpful. In the 2005–06 trapping season, Missouri trappers took more than 3,000 otters. In areas where we want fewer otters, trappers have taken as many as 50 percent of the otters each year. Annual survival rates are averaging about 75 percent in areas where our goal is to allow populations to remain stable or continue to increase slowly.
Missouri’s otter population probably peaked at somewhere between 15,000 and 18,000 animals. We documented as many as three otters per mile in some small streams, and their fish populations did decline. Anglers report better fishing recently, however, and complaints about otters have gone down, although we still have a way to go in some areas.
About This Article
Author
DAVE HAMILTON is a resource scientist with
the Department of Conservation in Columbia.
He studies a variety of wildlife, some of which
have made tremendous comebacks, including
river otters, bobcats and black bears. He enjoys
hunting with his wife, Sue, and family at their
cabin in northern Missouri.
