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.