My latest liherald.com column looks at the amazing river otter. Here goes:
By Scott Brinton
“In wildness is the preservation of the world.”
—Henry David Thoreau
Last Nov. 8, I was kayaking in Emory Creek in Freeport, just north of the Narrows, when I spotted what I thought was a chunk of garbage floating in the waterway and paddled over to collect it. I was headed north, back to the Albany Avenue boat ramp, after two hours on the water. Suddenly the garbage jerked, as if it were alive.
“What the . . .?” I blurted out. Were my eyes deceiving me?
As I approached, I realized it wasn’t garbage, but a river otter, the first one I’d ever seen in the wild — or anywhere. I slowed my paddling, hoping to sneak up close enough for a quick photo. I stroked all of three times when the otter lifted its head slightly and dived headlong underwater, its back forming a perfect U as it plunged, like some mythical sea serpent of yore. I waited a few minutes to see if it might resurface, but it vanished.
I came away feeling grateful to have seen this beautiful creature, if only momentarily. River otters are indeed rare on Long Island. They once numbered in the hundreds of thousands on the East Coast, but were hunted mercilessly from the 1600s through the early 1900s for their sleek fur, the densest of any mammal in the animal kingdom. When Europeans first settled in North America, otters inhabited every waterway on the continent, according to Mike Bottini, a wildlife biologist with the nonprofit, Islip-based Seatuck Environmental Association. By the 20th century, their numbers had dwindled to a few thousand, scattered in small, out-of-sight colonies.
Seatuck teamed up with the nonprofit Peconic Land Trust on May 20 to present a webinar on “The Re-wilding of Long Island,” about how any number of creatures — including river otters — are making a comeback thanks to conservation programs, so I had to tune in. In addition to Bottini, it featured Emily Hall, Seatuck’s conservation policy advocate; Kelly Hamilton, a New York State Department of Environmental Conservation wildlife biologist; and Enrico Nardone, Seatuck’s executive director. Arielle Santos, its wildlife conservation policy program coordinator, moderated.
To read the entire column, click here.
