The retired teacher quoted in the above new article was a high school teacher of mine before he became an assistant principal of the high school (probably 1,600+ students in my day). He is one of those guys who is "never wrong."

I don't know the whole history of river otter in southeast South Dakota but I think he repeats a well used trope that there were some here originally. I have never seen or read any historical accounting of otters being in the Sioux Falls area the first 50 or so years of the city's existence. Maybe there were some, but maybe there weren't. Mr. G. certainly wasn't around in the 1920s or '30s. Overall, a lot less trees around,even along the river, between 1870 and say 1930. Not that otters probably need trees but I don't know how much of a prairie animal river otters really were back in the 19th century.

Lots of otters here