North American River Otter Sign
In this photograph you can see part of an old, abandoned beaver lodge on your left. To the right of the lodge, In the center of the photograph, the soil is darkened and littered with lighter-colored scat. Even if the beaver lodge were active, the scat wouldn’t be that of beavers, as they defecate only in water. A close examination of the scat would reveal a plethora of fish scales, something you would not find in beaver scat, but you would in North American River Otters’.
As otters move about their home range, they rarely create their own burrows. Instead they use a variety of temporary dens made by other species, especially beavers and muskrats, but also woodchucks and foxes, as well as natural cavities in riverbanks and in woody debris.
Otter dens are commonly located near a latrine site. These sites are called “brown-outs,” a reference to the blackened area where otters repeatedly defecate over an extended period of time, so much so that the vegetation is killed by the otters’ acidic urine and scat.
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