Finally some good news. I had no idea the Ohio Department of Wildlife had such an outstanding role in the recovery in the Great Lakes region. River otters are really interesting creatures.
Humboldt State supports an active citizen science project to observe and document river otter populations in the ~watershed of Humboldt Bay in Northern California. It's a cool model for engaging with the community to help protecting its natural resources. I could easily imagine similar resources in other regions.
*
https://hsu.reclaim.hosting/NorthCoastOtters/
>Finally some good news. I had no idea the Ohio Department of Wildlife had such an outstanding role in the recovery in the Great Lakes region
It was really unthinkable to see them in the Cuyahoga (the river that famously caught fire in Cleveland) back in the 90s. Now they're everywhere. Turns out we can actually fix things when we want to. ODNR and the EPA deserve tons of credit, but locally it's really the effort of Metroparks that brought them back; one of the top public park systems in the country, a real gem that Northeast Ohio has held on to and supported. The National Park designation of Cuyahoga Valley in 2000 played a huge role as well. Conservation works.
A similar thing happened here in Singapore. Otters were endangered, but after the government worked to clean up the waterways, they came back. They are now thriving, to the point where my condo has signs up saying “What to do when you encounter otters” [0] because occasionally they come in and raid our fish pond.
The main character of the stories I tell my son is an otter. They are very cute and resilient animals, was surprised to hear that they were, too, once endangered.
There are also some YouTube channels that share the days of some otters in captivity, not sure about how I feel about that.
Humboldt State supports an active citizen science project to observe and document river otter populations in the ~watershed of Humboldt Bay in Northern California. It's a cool model for engaging with the community to help protecting its natural resources. I could easily imagine similar resources in other regions. * https://hsu.reclaim.hosting/NorthCoastOtters/
It was really unthinkable to see them in the Cuyahoga (the river that famously caught fire in Cleveland) back in the 90s. Now they're everywhere. Turns out we can actually fix things when we want to. ODNR and the EPA deserve tons of credit, but locally it's really the effort of Metroparks that brought them back; one of the top public park systems in the country, a real gem that Northeast Ohio has held on to and supported. The National Park designation of Cuyahoga Valley in 2000 played a huge role as well. Conservation works.
[0] https://imgur.com/a/pLH5gNj
There are also some YouTube channels that share the days of some otters in captivity, not sure about how I feel about that.