Guys,,, just out of curiosity,,, is there any chance that some of you guys on trapperman were involved or know anyone who was involved in this extremely successful project??

Believe Jackie was, John.

Yes I was.
Missouri released the first otter in ‘82 and the last in ‘94.
Opened season in ‘96.
I helped with a couple releases, rode in a helicopter doing radio telemetry on otter, and assisted with the research that involved trapping and implanting radio transmitters in their body cavities. Interesting stuff. A big part of the releases and subsequent research was in the county and surrounding counties where I live.

I cannot speak for others that have ponds/streams who enjoy any kind of fishing in them that has seen what a disaster otters can do in a short amount of time that would admit that they were involved. This was another DNR folly that turned sour. Today there are examples of other introductions of animals in places that they were once native but pushed toward nonexistence.

Doesn't take them long to clean small streams or a pond out of fish.

All I can say is the Gasconade and Osage can handle the increase in otter fish take. The big and little Maries and Tavern creek have been decimated by otters. What used to be a well kept secret for small mouth is gone.

I catch more otter than I do pounds of fish in a year.
Most otter damage is perceived and not real in my opinion. And my opinion is based on 32 years as a game warden and trapper living in the most otter rich county in Missouri. I could go on and on, but I’m headed to bed lol.

River otters were reintroduced in WI during the 1980s, with 1985 considered a major year. The DNR spear headed that reintroduction. I don't know any of the trappers or individuals that participated in the process.
They are doing very well in WI. We have lots of lakes, ponds, flowages, sloughs and rivers and streams so there is plenty of habitat for them and with our geogrophy movement is easy.

Bryce

Talked to a long time MDC employee that said reintroducing them was one item the MDC regretted. They would have eventually came here but would have taken longer. Other was keeping the bobcat season closed as long as they did. Have saw them wipe out small ponds of catfish.

Knowing the distances otters can travel creeks and rivers and how successful the reintroduction was, what was the barrier that kept them from expanding on their own?

You will not find to many people that will admit they were involved in one of the worse so called animal reintroduction programs in their states history. Makes the wolf programs look like a joke ( at least ranchers get reimbursed for cattle that wolves kill ). If so please list your full names here so the process of farm pond owners can contact you for reparations of $1000’s of dollars worth fish that have bern killed by the otters you turned loose.
We are all ears or should i say all eyes watching this post.

Tman is a trapping forum......fishing is second fiddle.

Long live the otter!

I hope they stay fat on the fish.

Are you otter haters even trappers?

Yes in Indiana there all over this state.
We only have a 2 otter limit. The state should up the limits.

Otter are far more than a perceived threat to ponds. However, I dont blame them as much as I blame regulations that are too restrictive...and of course, trappers that dont trap them each year to help regulate them...regardless of fur prices. They are like anything else else...need to be managed.

I cant even trap for beaver in the Niobrara for fear of catching protected otter.

Yes I was and when beaver became a problem with the otter vs beaver Dave Hamilton came up to the area I was on and we dealt with issue the best we could. I miss Dave. Heck of a furbearer biogist. Also miss the $140 river otters average year or 2 with NAFA

I recall going to NFH spring meetings in 80s here after otters had been reintroduced. We had so many discussions with Frank Andelt of Nebraska G&P on potential restrictions for beaver trapping methods along certain stretches of the Platte River to try to get them established. Was difficult to trap beaver without catching otter, a common thread in those conversations but beaver needed to be managed too. Talked about restricting use of body grips so otters could be released. I recall one biologist suggesting beaver trapping along one stretch of the river get restricted to front foot sets in 1.5 coils only and it got some chuckles from the crowd. One older fellow at a meeting leaned over to me and said he turned a few loose out of #3 northwoods and he said “those little (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) are mean” to turn loose too.
Today we have a season with total catch limit and tags after catch. But the season is fairly new only in last few years has that opened up. Most of my 45+ years of trapping we did not have a season for otter just had to dance around the incidentals and turn them in to authorities if we couldn’t release them. Took a heck of a long time before the season was finally opened. And I see otters from time to time crossing the road around where I live. They are thriving.
Glad we have a season again.
Jim

Where do I start ?? We owned a farm in Ohio right across the road from part of a 7000 acre mostly wet lands wild life area where they were first turned loose. No one said anything about turning them loose. had to read about it in the paper. The Grand river, which flows all the way to Lake Eria, had its head waters starting in this area. The river ran through our farm. NOW I trap. One of the very few things I care about !!! That first year I caught one but got real lucky as it pulled out just as I was walking up to it. A week or so later one rat trap came up missing. The place was tore up with claw marks. I remember sitting down on that river bank and saying to myself that I had better change my set ups and trap placements. Pocket sets the trap was placed right in the pocket. Double stacking everything. It got to be a chore rather then enjoyment. The next year I floated one away from a 160 bottom edge set. Stopped using those sets. And yes, I was using those sets before someone wrote a book about them. The following years my rat catch kept going down and somewhat with the mink catch. The small smallmouth bass disappeared and the bullheads that were fun to catch when my daughter was small did so too. They kept telling us that if you have a problem with otters we will send someone out to livetrap them and move them. What a joke. Everyone one knows that otters are here one day and gone the next. Up untill they gave us a season on them I knew a few pond owners who just shot them. I'll admit they are neat critters to watch and they are fish killing machines without a drought. Now we have bobcats out our ears and no season on them yet at least not in Ohio.

Give this a listen. Lots of Otters went from NC to other states for reintroduction efforts.

There was no handbook on how to trap them live and keep them alive. Claudie had to figure it out. He had some great stories

https://www.trappingradio2.com/trapping-radio-126-trap-otter-otter/

Like Skippy said, where do I start.

The limit in Ohio needs raised in the zone I live in. That is not speculation, that is multiple years of boots on the ground experience. The season dates also need to be changed but I doubt either will ever happen though. There are numerous otters everywhere here. They are a fish killing machine and are probably one of the causes of the drastic muskrat population decline. Managed properly, there probably could be a happy balance of otters and muskrats but by limiting the otter catch, the muskrats are very scarce and getting scarcer.

I get more and more otter complaints every year. They decimated one guy's pond a few years back. I (had to have a friend help because of our limit) took 5 otters off his pond in a few days. His pond has never recovered because it is close to a major water system and he still gets an occasional otter or two coming in and wreaking havoc.

This year a landowner called and had several huge catfish pulled out of his pond and partially eaten. He saw 3 otters and shot one.

I catch several every year and have to release them because our season hasn't opened yet. If the boneheads who set the season dates ever had to release a live otter from a trap by themselves, they probably would change the season and have it open when our muskrat and mink season opens. I've had several close calls when releasing otter before season. I don't take chances any more when releasing them.

Come on CH, the odnr would never introduce something they wouldn't control!! Look at the Bobcat that was introduced for trappers!!

LOL

We have lots and lots of bobcats but aren't allowed to trap them and we hardly have any gray fox any more, but we can trap them.

Was the primary trap used a #11? And if so, how were the traps anchored.
Was there a quarantine period?

I wasn’t aware of otters from North Carolina being captured… I had always thought they were from Louisiana.

There is a man on here who was vital to the program and worked alongside Dave Hamilton. I greatly respect what MDC did in this otter re-introduction and am blessed to have some of the original foot-hold traps involved in this project. Set up modified #11s that came from Arkansas......

Only if they can get a biologist out there within 48 hours to "prove" it was a wolf kill. If you can get a biologist out there in the time frame which depends on a)finding the animal in time, b)being able to get ahold of a biologist and c)the biologist actually being willing to show up. Then it is totally up to the biologist, if he looks at it and says, "well I can't tell if the wolves killed it or just ate on it after it died of other causes." Then you don't get paid. Depends on the biologist whether he is a pro-wolf guy or an honest guy, and oftentimes on how much pressure he is getting from higher up to limit outflow of funds from his bosses budget.

Also, in many states it only pays for cattle, sheep, and maybe horses. Dogs, goats, llamas, alpacas, and other "exotics" are not covered.

I know of one ol boy here in Arkansas that was involved in MO and #11's is what he used. I would have loved to see the getting the otter out of the trap operation. Lol

There was a really nice trout stream near my place that the otter cleaned out. A lady involved with animal rights wrote an article stating that otter didn't eat trout, but preferred rough fish instead such as carp, suckers, etc.

A guy I know was deer hunting near the creek I mentioned. He was in his deer stand and watched an otter surface with a trout from a large hole in the creek, lay it on the ice and eat it. When it was gone it dove back in and came up with another trout and did the same. For several years in a row I took my quota of 4 easily. They will wipe out the trout in a stream.

Steve Gappa , Mn

It is a challenge to cut a beaver snare off the waist of a large otter....while standing in knee deep mud and water. When they are cut loose they don't always run away from you...some run at you and will try to eat you alive.

Ask me how I know.

There is a reason otter are called wolf of the waterways!!

This is my first otter i caught back in the seventies on Elk crk just north of the southern boundary ( hyway 29) for
the northern beaver and otter zone. Notice the registration tag as the otter had to be tagged as soon as removing
from trap. I had it tanned and recently donated it to the WTA with that tag still attached. Their have always been
a fair population of otter here in west central Wisconsin along the Chippewa river and it's tributaries.
There is a chunk of Chippewa river bottoms close to the Mississippi River that is and has been closed for both beaver and otter trapping for many years. It is Called the " Tiffany Bottoms and helps for keeping a good population
of both.in my area .
Bryce, do you know where they were reintroduced ?

Snare caught otters have a tendency to die within a few days of being released. That's why when we were asked to catch otters to relocate to NY, I believe, we were told no snare caught otters. This had been tried and they died when in cages within a few days of being caught. So, the #11 was the preferred trap.

We have lots and lots of bobcats but aren't allowed to trap them and we hardly have any gray fox any more, but we can trap them.[/quote]

Randy, how many cats have you released over the years? Quite a few in my area now.

Was part of it in Colorado in the early 80's another catastrophic move on the CPW's part, instant trapping regulations in the otter zones. Promises of being able to take otter when the population established, 50 years later still no take. Water sheds decimated of fish. No love lost between landowners and otters here.

Randy, how many cats have you released over the years? Quite a few in my area now.[/quote]

Dan,

The most was 6 in one year. They were all caught in water sets - bridge walls and pocket sets. Without digging out my records, I would guess around 25 or so total. Always miss several each year, thankfully. I see their tracks everywhere. I'm now starting to see bobcats in the daylight walking down township roads or eating on road kill deer along the side of the road.

North Carolina traded otters to WV for wild turkey. Thinking this was in the 70s. We even hired the WV turkey biologist Wayne Bailey. We now have a 4week spring turkey season in all 100 countries in North Carolina.

I think our otters are healthy as well. Our coastal mars areas hold lots of otters.

If I remember correctly some of the transplant otters into your state came from the Oregon coast and were traded to Colorado for some bighorn sheep.

They supposedly released them in this area in the kankakee river around 1995. I'm about 20 miles away from the kankakee and started seeing them in my ditches by 2001. Now every waterway is pretty much fishless. There is a fish and wildlife area near here with 2 small gravel pits, last year as the ice was going out around the edges the otter were rooting around under the ice in the mud and digging out turtles. They had over 75 turtles on the ice on one of the small gravel pits with there heads and feet chewed off- whatever they could get at inside the shells. They raid the duck and geese nests on the marsh and eat all the eggs and young waterfowl - this marsh used to have tons of ducks and geese, muskrats now there's very few. You used to be able to catch 5,6,7 lb bass and nice bluegill in this marsh, tons of bullhead, now nothing. They introduced one species that pretty much eliminated over a dozen others in this area. But what are you gonna do - no one in charge of these things gives a hoot. I wouldn't call a program that introduces a species of animal that pretty much erases a dozen others successful

Monster Toms,...unbelievable! Politicians words and honesty....not in the same sentence.
Around here....so far on my traplines they are beginning to show up. Still a low population.
BUT I am starting see where a guy needs to set up for them on day one and just leave those
sets alone. As they seem to show up just after you pull traps up.

Some where I heard, I don’t know where, that they used toothed traps to catch the otters. It was said that the toothed traps kept the foot from sliding around in the trap. The toothed caused a puncture wound which healed much quicker than the abrasion from sliding, in the trap. I can find nothing on this, and I have searched. Does anybody know if that is true?

I was at two of the releases in NE Indiana in the 1990’s, and went to one of the meetings that the biologist in charge of the program held at a local nature center.

I guess my take on it around here is that I really like having otters around. Yes they eat fish, but they are not too difficult to manage. Which brings me to another thought, here in these parts we desperately need a higher limit than 2 per year. The lakes, especially smaller lakes and ponds, “Ate up” with otters. The other management change that I think would go a long way to reducing the impacts on small private lakes and ponds is to allow them to be removed under the same regulations as beavers or other frequent flyer nuisance animal. I have met a lot of people who loved the idea of having otters around, right up until they camped out for a spell and ate darn near every fish in the pond, fish they paid a lot of money to stock. If the pond owner could deal with them like they would a beaver cutting down an apple orchard, a lot of the anger toward otters would be lessened.
Some feel Indiana waited to long to have a season, and I tend to agree, but we could quickly get them under control if the DNR would allow it.

They are also turtle killing machines.

I understood that otter were introduced in Ohio to reduce the beaver population.
Don't really know how that started, but doesn't seem to effect the beaver population.

States with good habitat and well established otter populations should not have limits. It’s ridiculous to think that trappers today are going to decimate a population.

Illinois has a limit of 5 and we have the high priced cities tags deal going. BUT I know of the trappers just South of me that can easily fill more than 5 in a short time.
So I agree with what Clay and Eric say.

Toothed traps were used on wolves not otters. Tripped out #11's were the trap of choice for otter relocation.

I worked with Dave Hamilton on his research up there on them in 2001. Where i grew up in Alabama we had no otters! With the collapse of the fur market after the boom they gradually made their way up and it's just like Mo. where they were introduced, everyone flips out when they see one in a pond convinced they eat all the fish.

Oddly enough in our 'catfish capitol' of the state where all the commercial catfish farming takes place you can fill a pick up truck bed up with otter's and no one down there pays them much attention since they grew up with them there.

Allways wondered why the otters disappeared and had to be reintroduced to begin with. Caught my first in the early 90s but trapped since 75 . No otters back then in southern Minnesota.

Reading this post it's a wonder there's a fish alive in the state of Mississippi what with all the otter we have here. I have a fish pond and have had zero issues with otter in it. Perhaps the yard dogs keep them ran off though.

According to data I found, below is where the reintroduction areas were in the 1980s.

Kettle Moraine State Forest: A key area for habitat restoration.
Black River State Forest: Provided suitable wetland environments.
Chippewa River: Offered abundant food sources and shelter.
Lake Wissota: A strategic site for population growth.
Trempealeau National Wildlife Refuge: Ideal for conservation efforts.
Lower Wisconsin Riverway: Supported diverse ecosystems for otters.

Looks like mostly southern 2/3rds of WI. Otters may have been present to common in the north. I don't know. They sure have done well here in WI.

Bryce

I catch 60 to 90 otters every winter since the coon market tanked. I never get more than 10 miles from home the way the crow flies. Always caught otter since season opened in ‘96, but really went after them for the last 10 years or so. Add in the otter shot by landowners and duck hunters, and our population is still super strong.
You all with good habitat and otter populations with restricted harvest have biologists either with an agenda, or they don’t know anything about otter harvest in this day and age.
Big difference in harvest pressure today.

Thanks for the info Bryce. I was never aware of the need to "reintroduce" otter to parts of Wisconsin. I have had enough experience with incidental otters over the years to question the need for reintroduction at least in this area.

Not a good deal for me , Cleaned out 400 stocked walleye pond in a month nothing you can do . DNR says so

If you wouldn’t mind, please share this insight with our SDGF&P..LOL. Can’t run an effective coon line near water here without piles of incidentals. Frankly they have become a nuisance on my coyote line if I’m near ponds, creeks, or the river. Not fun to deal with and a lot of wasted time. On top of that they have the quota(20) LOL starting the first week of November. Far from prime, so no value besides to show your buddies if you don’t trap much. Ponds here have no chance anymore with them around.