Your otter situation would be the way it is today if they would use science instead of sentiment.

Sentiment it's what spawns terms like quality of experience.

Wouldn't I need another variable for change?

Public sentiment is really not impacting otter yet...but I will say it is baked into the system ready to rear its ugly head.

Remember, it was bad science that put the brakes on our harvest. Sure sentiment made them justify the increasing harvest, but it was the faulty science that put the breaks on. You mentioned YOY harvest ratio, there is the item that put the breaks on our otter harvest in WI. We added to the panic with the aerial surveys.

Isnt change part of the normal process.

Notice I didnt use the term "public" sentiment. It was intentional.

We are the public.

49er, I was intentional in where I used as well...

Maybe we need to verify science. Boco or white, if your harvest was 50% YOY on otter, can you increase harvest, maintain harvest, or should you decrease harvest? Why?

Trappers here manage otter by maintaining a maximum sustainable beaver harvest which includes the harvest of wolves.Do that and you will never have to worry about your otter harvest,as good beaver pops provide the habitat and keeping wolves at a minimum takes care of their main predator.

I can't answer the question as it concerns otters. But if that 50/50 ratio was marten.........you better stop trapping that particular area. However..........otter have slightly larger litters than marten so it MAY be ok at that ratio. The thing to remember is that you need to look at YOY relative to adult FEMALES, not all adults.

I might add that a trapper in the field will not be able to distinguish age of otter,and I doubt any will take the time or buy the equipment necessary to measure the tooth pulp cavity or count the tooth cementum annuli.
You could send them away for that but that would not help you because your harvest would have already taken place.

Thanks. I think I didn't give you enough info so lets try this again. Lets assume you could tell the difference boco.

Now your female to male ratio remains constant, but your young of the year as a percentage of harvest drops. Are you increasing, decreasing, or keeping harvest the same? Why?

You would have to figure out why reproduction has fallen off-some type of reproductive failure.
Otters are not sexually mature until their second year,regardless I would curtail my harvest if I suspected a reproductive failure,because you would not want to catch mature females which would be important to the future recovery.
Habitat is the prime factor,in my opinion to having a good otter harvest.Drought could lead to a reproductive/recruitment decline,an increase in wolf population would see a decline in adults also.

I would agree with that completely !

We have had exactly the situation you describe over a large area of Alaska for about 5-7 years now. But, it has been the marten population..not otter.

We can't touch reproduction rates yet...still exploring if those ratios are too simplistic.

What would cause you to reverse coarse and instead increase harvest? Anything?

Do you ever skew your harvest ratios based on how you trap?

Again......based on marten.........I can skew my harvest ratios based on WHERE I trap rather than HOW. I don't know whether that would apply to otter. I doubt it as they are somewhat more confined to water courses.


The only thing that would make me increase harvest is being able to cover more ground. The harvest per mile may not increase but the absolute number could. As long as my YOY/adult female ratio was acceptable I would continue to harvest at max sustained yield.


I would think you'd want to know reproduction rates before deciding what a sustainable harvest ratio was.

The harvest of Otters province wide have been stable since the 1950's(just after the inception of the registered trapline system in Ontario).This indicates that the harvest is sustainable.
Otters cover a large area more than several traplines for sure.Otter numbers rise with the increase in beaver,so,look after your beaver and you will never have to worry about otter.

I trap in an area that has a good population of otter, and a known number of trappers, and the otter enjoy a wide range, as to habitat. They also have an abundant, year-round food supply. All that being what it is, I think that, if they hit $200.00 a pelt, we could put a dent in them. Seen it done.

Yep, and then the market went back to normal and now what?

I've said a million times let the market decide. Now if we have a sustained period of high prices, say 5 to 7 years, I'd change my tune but we have yet to see that.

In the 15 years I trapped In SC I averaged 48 otter for a two month period for that 15 years. The best two months I caught 81 and that was sometime In the last 4 or 5 years. so In my situation I don't think I could ever hurt the otter population where I trapped. The beaver population was different story but we were averaging some where around 300 In two months over that 15 year period. The last 2 years we had to move to new locations to keep up that average.

Looking more like we might need to include another variable 49er...

What if I told you the otter were reproducing better than they were in the past. Adult pregnancy rates went from 70% to over 85%. Juvenile rates jumped from 10% to 45%. Now what?

Are they ? 70% seems very low. Most literature that I have read but pregnancy rates at 99% based on harvest necropsies.

Research suggests that there is one adult female per 24 miles of river and one adult male per 33 miles. Of course this depends on habitat.