There are so many challenges coming in this new year and the years that follow. Dealing with the worst pandemic in a century, protecting our democracy, and above all, working to mitigate the effects of climate change and global warming. Those of you on the front lines: you are making a difference. You may feel like you are burning out, but hang in there, and take a short sanity break. Here is something to help: River Otters (Lontra candensis).
We were towards the end of the Waterfowl Auto Loop at the San Luis National Wildlife Refuge, and I saw something dive into the algae-covered slough. Sure enough a fur-covered head popped up, and then another. They seemed as interested in us as much as we were in them. So here is a 90-second moment of Zen for a New Year. I hope that yours is as good a year as possible in challenging times.
The Tuolumne River is at a low ebb these days. It has been flowing at a mere 97 cubic feet per second for what seems like months now, a level that barely keeps the river flowing at all. It's not a natural flow of course; an entire series of dams control the amount of water present in the river. In non-drought years, the river might be allowed to flow 3 to 5 times what it is doing right now.
But water is life, and the narrow thread of the river, while perhaps too warm for trout and salmon (there are reports of disastrous fish kills on rivers like the Klamath farther to the north) is still allowing animals and insects to survive this hottest part of the summer. I was out walking the river trail this morning as is my tradition watching for birds. I was delighted to see a crowd of Greater Yellowlegs and Least Sandpipers in the water with a watchful Osprey in the Cottonwood tree above. A pair of Black Phoebes were chasing flies just over the water. And then I saw a serpentine shape crest in the water.
I don't see River Otters (Lontra canadensis) all that often on the Tuolumne River. I know they are there, but they range widely up and down the river, and months may pass between sightings. They are usually pretty far off, but today I was just sitting as a family of four of them casually swam by. Enjoy the video!
The Tuolumne River is a majestic presence in Yosemite National Park, with a canyon that rivals the Grand Canyon in depth, and a valley that once rivaled Yosemite Valley at Hetch Hetchy before the dam was built. But don't discount the lower parts of the river where it flows through the Central Valley. It is this part of the river that supports the greatest diversity of animal and plant life. I've seen otters, bobcats, foxes, coyotes, raccoons, deer, and evidence of beaver in recent years, and nearly 150 species of birds have been reported on the two miles of river trail that I follow every day. It's a special place.
I had the delightful privilege of watching a River Otter family hanging out along the Tuolumne River the other day. There were three of them, two adults and a juvenile. It's the most time I've ever seen any of them out of the water. It's a good sign that recovery is possible in a river system despite the abuses we've heaped on our wonderful gift of nature.
The Gold Rush of 1848 was catastrophic to the Tuolumne. Miners dug up river vegetation and processed literally all the river gravels for the elusive metal. Gold dredges did incalculable
damage to stretches of the rivers in the Great Valley by ripping out the riparian vegetation and destroying the soils along the river floodplain. Underground mines brought minerals to the surface that oxidized to form acids and other toxins. Mercury used in the gold recovery process leaked into river waters. In the twentieth century we built massive dams that altered the water quality and flow levels. These have wreaked havoc with what remains of the natural ecosystem.
One of the bellwethers of the health of a river system is the presence or absence of apex predators and other native species. The predators cannot thrive if their prey species are not present, whether from pollution, drought or other cause. I'm always looking for signs that the native species are present and hopefully thriving. In the last few years I've run across bobcats, foxes, raccoons, beavers (gnawed trees, anyway), hawks and ospreys and Northern River Otters (Lontra canadensis). There was even a report recently of a Mountain Lion downstream in Modesto.
There used to be an even more diverse group of predators and prey species along this river. In historic times there were California Grizzly Bears, Black Bears, and Gray Wolves, along with the California Condor. In prehistoric times, the tally included Sabertooth cats, Dire Wolves, and several other rather scary beasts. The river was populated by gigantic tusked salmon up to nine feet in length.
Geologically, our river otters were a relatively late addition to the river ecosystems of North America. Their family evolved more than 30 million years ago, and spread throughout the Old World and migrated into the Americas, including the Giant Otter of South America. But the Northern River Otter fossil record only goes back to the beginning of the ice ages about 1.9 million years ago. They are related to European species, and probably came across the Bering Land Strait when sea levels were lower (although being an aquatic species, they could have swam the relatively short distance between Russia and Alaska).
The current range of the otter ends in our region. It's their frontier. According to the River Otter Ecology Project, there have been sightings on the Tuolumne River, and just one or two in the Merced River one drainage to the south (some otters were spotted in Yosemite Valley for the first time in decades recently). I'm hoping they will be able to spread farther south into the San Joaquin River drainage. I have seen them on the valley floor in the San Luis National Wildlife Refuge in a slough of the San Joaquin.
The otters cooperated long enough that I was able to get some video too. Enjoy!
It's not like I haven't seen them before. I see River Otters once every few months on the Tuolumne River adjacent to the trail I follow on most free mornings. But until this week, I've never caught any getting out of the river. They've always been swimming. But this morning a pair of otters were searching and playing along the river just downstream of the trailhead. I sat and watched them swim for awhile and then they climbed up on the branches of the river thickets.
I tried a couple of videos, but only one came out well. It's a little bit shaky because I was at total zoom, around 60x, but they came out pretty clear. It's been a week of little nature surprises, with foxes and rare birds and the like. Otters always give me a reason to smile a bit in the midst of lots of challenges.
There are things in my life that are more thrilling than spotting River Otters (Lontra Canadensis), but there are not many of them. I spend a lot of time on the Tuolumne River where it flows through my town, and also at the local national wildlife refuges, including the Merced, the San Luis, and the San Joaquin. I'm usually searching for birds, but a bit of my attention is always watching for rarely seen mammals like beavers, foxes, and especially River Otters.
We were on the eastern leg of the San Luis NWR Waterfowl Auto-Tour when I spotted what I thought were four ducks bunched together. But they didn't look right, and after a moment I realized that it was a family of River Otters playing on the banks of the irrigation canal. We played a brief game of hide and seek (I mostly hid behind the car), and they eventually swam away downstream (down-canal?).
Most of the time I forget that I have a fully functional video with my camera, but I thought of video first this time around and got a short shot of the family swimming away together. Then I snapped pictures as I could in the dim shadows where they were hiding. What I noticed later is that in each picture of an individual, there was actually a second otter photo-bombing the shot. Can you find the extra otter in each picture?
River Otters in California took a real beating over the centuries of European occupation in California, with trapping and destruction of their habitat by gold mining, damming, and urbanization causing a drastic drop in their population and range. With efforts at reclaiming the river environments in the Bay Area and Central Valley, they have begun to spread out again. A pair of otters was even seen in Yosemite Valley a year or two ago.
I've seen otters on a number of occasions on the Tuolumne River, but this was my first sighting at the San Luis refuge, which is part of the San Joaquin River drainage. The river had been decimated by reservoir construction decades ago and the river was dry for many tens of miles in the San Joaquin Valley, but recent agreements have resulted in a new river, with the potential of even the return of the salmon. The otters will surely follow!
This year just gets better and better (I have a futile hope that this trend continues for the entire year...). Yesterday I get the best look ever at a Bobcat on the Tuolumne River, and then today, another marvelous sight: River Otters up close and personal.
I see River Otters once in awhile during my walks along the Tuolumne River Parkway Trail in Waterford, but they've always been pretty far away, and I characteristically see a nose and eyes sticking out of the water. Today I was along part of the Don Pedro irrigation infrastructure near La Grange looking for a rare bird that's been reported in the area. I was on a highway bridge and looking down I saw ripples along the bank and immediately figured it was some ducks hiding in the brush, but then I saw whiskers. I started snapping pictures, which were all practically unusable except for the one above. I then remembered to turn on the video and I got a pretty nice, if short, bit of one of the otters exploring the bank.
The picture above is a screen capture from the video, actually.
River Otters have a decent future as California rivers get cleaner and flows become more generous as planners start to see rivers in the context of an entire ecosystem that we are part of, instead of as a faucet solely for agricultural interests. A pair of River Otters was even seen in Yosemite Valley recently for the first time in decades. It is such a pleasure to see these playful animals in the wild.
I am quite lucky to have the Tuolumne River in my backyard. The river rises in the highest regions of Yosemite National Park, flows through incredible and largely unknown gorges that rival the Grand Canyon in depth. Water is trapped in a series of reservoirs including Hetch Hetchy and Don Pedro, and at that point the river could have been cut off the way the San Joaquin River was destroyed. But water agreements have kept a minimum flow, so the river flows onto the floor of the Great Valley and maintains a continuous riparian habitat all the way to the Sacramento Delta. The river bed has been severely altered, first by the gold miners, and later by quarry operators and farmers. But portions are in the process of healing, and in places the stream is starting to resemble its earlier incarnation as a wild river.
I saw River Otters (Lontra canadensis) for the first time just two or three years ago, and I'll see them two or three times a year when I stroll along the river trail. This morning the water level was low and river transparent, so I saw what I thought was an immense fish maybe three feet long deep in the water. I turned on the camera to get video and hit the wrong button, but then the "fish" surfaced and I realized I was watching an Otter. I got the video going correctly and got some of the best "footage" so far.
River Otters are making a comeback in the rivers and streams of the San Joaquin and Sacramento Rivers and across the Bay Area. I'm so glad some of them have made it here to my little corner of the river! For more information on otter sightings and ecology, check out the River Otter Ecology Project.
Here in California we've abused our rivers, especially in the Sierra Nevada, and in particular, the Tuolumne River, the one in my backyard. The Gold Rush of 1848 was catastrophic. Miners dug up river vegetation and processed literally all the river gravels for the elusive metal. Gold dredges did incalculable
damage to stretches of the rivers in the Great Valley by ripping out the riparian vegetation and
destroying the soils along the river floodplain. Underground mines brought minerals to the surface that oxidized to form acids and other toxins. Mercury used in the gold recovery process leaked into river waters. In the twentieth century we built massive dams that altered the water quality and flow levels. There are recovery efforts happening, but it will be many
more years before the river can be truly healthy for salmon and all the other
life forms that historically lived along the river. There are many other challenges, like
the invasive hyacinth, a water plant that clogs river channels, pollution, and low flows related to extensive droughts in California (the water is warmer than it should be).
One of the bellwethers of the health of a river system is the presence or absence of apex predators and other native species. The predators cannot thrive if their prey species are not present, whether from pollution, drought or other cause. That's always on my mind when I walk the shores of the Tuolumne River where it flows into the Central Valley. This stretch of river is controlled by a system of reservoirs and irrigation canals, and flows are tightly controlled most of the time. I'm always looking for signs that the native species are present and hopefully thriving. In the last few years I've run across foxes, raccoons, beavers (gnawed trees, anyway), hawks and ospreys and much to my delight on four occasions now, Northern River Otters (Lontra Canadensis).
The current range of the otter ends in our region. It's their frontier. According to the River Otter Ecology Project, there have been sightings on the Tuolumne River, and just one or two in the Merced River one drainage to the south (some otters were spotted in Yosemite Valley for the first time in decades last year).
The frontier once extended farther to the south. There's another river that has suffered even more degradation. It's the upper San Joaquin. It flows out of the Sierra Nevada high country between Yosemite and Kings Canyon National Parks. So much of the river has been diverted for irrigation that the river hasn't flowed on many stretches for more than half a century. There's no habitat for wildlife when there is no river. A series of lawsuits and agency agreements resulted in the formation of the San Joaquin River Restoration Project that recently saw water flow again in the river. Maybe there is hope that the river will host otters again as well.
My adventure with the otter this morning started when I was looking for birds along the river's edge. I happened to look down and saw a strange looking round head looking at me through the grass, It wasn't even a second, but I thought it might be an otter. I walked downriver a short distance and started watching. After about 10 minutes, the otter swam by me, maybe 25 feet away. I snapped two pictures, and then remembered the video. I hit the "play" button, and started contentedly watching the otter swim upstream at a languid pace. Then I hit the "play" button again and actually started recording (but not realizing it). In the end I got a one second video of otter, and a minute and a half of random swinging camera.
The top picture is the otter from this morning, the closest I've ever been to one. The second is a shot from much further away of an otter I saw three weeks ago. Since I didn't get the greatest video ever seen of an otter this morning, you'll have to settle for the video from three weeks ago.
River Otter at the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge
California's Great Valley (called by some less proud people the Central Valley) is the most agriculturally productive place on the planet, producing something like a quarter of the nation's nuts, fruits and vegetables on about 2 percent of the land. The agricultural and accompanying urban development has altered 95% of the original savanna landscape. Prior to the arrival of the Europeans in the 1800s the valley was a vast prairie/grassland that stretched for 400 miles, broken up here and there by a vast network of rivers and wetland marshes fed by numerous streams flowing from the Sierra Nevada.
Raccoon at the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge
For several million years the valley was the wintering ground for millions, maybe billions of migratory birds that spent their summers breeding in the Arctic. The arrival of humans and their alteration of the landscape disrupted this intricate ecosystem. The birds continued to migrate in reduced numbers and with their natural food sources gone, they started going after the crops being grown by farmers. This became an untenable situation, and there were those who advocating shooting the birds to extinction, but cooler heads prevailed, and work began on establishing a chain of national and state bird refuges at strategic locations up and down the valley. These refuges provide us an idea of the primeval appearance of the valley.
Deer at the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge
It turns out of course that birds weren't the only creatures displaced by human development. The original valley was a savanna with multitudes of grazing animals and their predators. There were elk, deer, and pronghorns, along with wolves, coyotes, foxes, bobcats, mountain lions, and bears. Prior to 12,000 years ago, there were mammoths, mastodons, giant sloths, saber-tooth cats, and giant short-faced bears. To a degree, the refuges that were originally meant for birds also provide shelter for the remnants of this incredible ecosystem. In my travels, I've seen the elk and deer pictured in this post along with river otters, raccoons, foxes, and coyotes.
Tule Elk at the San Luis National Wildlife Refuge
Today's post was prompted by my sighting yesterday of three River Otters crossing a road at the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge. They were moving so fast that by the time I was able to raise my camera, only one was left, and I got but a single shot.
Here's the second video I captured of the River Otters in the Tuolumne River this evening (the first was in the previous post). There seems to be a momma and two pups. Meanwhile, Mrs. Geotripper was capturing pictures of me acting like a kid, chasing otters (if you are worried, I was actually pretty far away from them).
I've had a real treat of a day. I took my usual morning stroll along the Tuolumne River, catching some decent shots of a Black-chinned Hummingbird, and the back end of a Raccoon (that's not a great picture, but it was the first raccoon I've seen on this stretch of river). Then, totally on a whim, Mrs. Geotripper and I decided to catch the sunset from a high point on the Tuolumne Parkway Trail where the river emerges onto the floor of the Great Valley. We saw some kind of movement in the water, and I realized I was seeing River Otters (Lontra canadensis). My impression is that it was a mother with two pups. It was only the second time I've ever seen them, and this time I thought to catch some video. Enjoy! I'll post a second video in a few moments.
There's a wonderful thing about life and the animal world. No matter how old you are, you can still have the excitement of seeing something for the first time. The planet is so diverse and mysterious that you will never see it all, and so there is always a surprise waiting around the next corner. Even if it is in your own backyard!
If you have followed my blog for any length of time, you know that I have been extolling the pleasures of having a wonderful river in our town, and the new trail that has been constructed along the water. The Tuolumne River begins high in the Sierra Nevada in Yosemite National Park flowing through stupendously deep gorges before gliding into the Great Valley of California. It flows through the valley, joining the San Joaquin River and finally ends in San Francisco Bay. I live right where the river exits the Sierra Nevada foothills.
The new trail follows the river for two miles, and I walk it every chance I get, trying to document the bird species living along the river (45 so far, but I know there are many more). I've also seen various mammals and reptiles, including a Gray Fox, and a Red Fox. But up until now I've never seen a River Otter (Lontra canadensis). And I've really wanted to see one. I love otters in general (I've seen quite a few Sea Otters), and find great pleasure with their playful attitude towards life, and it drove me slightly crazy knowing that they make the Tuolumne River their home. News was made earlier this year when some otters were seen in Yosemite Valley (on the Merced River) for the first time in decades. So I've been watching for birds, but I always kept an eye on the water as well.
This morning I was at the sewage treatment center outfall (it's not as bad as it sounds, really), hoping to see a Western Kingfisher that I had seen a few days earlier. I saw it, but was distracted by a disturbance in the water just across the river. There was some kind of creature moving through the water. It took a while to get a good look, but eventually I captured a few fuzzy shots of a pair of otters cavorting in the water. It was a great moment! But I'll get better pictures next time...
