You Otter Know

Three feet long. Slick black and wet, and slithering out of a still lagoon. Beady eyes. Long, long tail. What bizarre and unexpected creature burst out of the water on my evening run around the Marin Lagoon this week? An escaped rat snake? A misdirected eel?

Try a river otter.

I've seen golden and bald eagles whirling and screaming overhead, coyotes chasing jackrabbits, male deer going head-to-head (literally) in the autumn rut. Hummingbirds building delicate nests out lichen and spider webs, salmon in final gasp in redwood-shadowed creeks. But I've never EVER seen a river otter here in Marin.

But there it was, appearing out of a flat-surface, trotting onto the dry gravely ground where I stood, taking a quick look at me not 10 feet away, then taking off in a galumphing gate. With its long body and short legs, its arching gait made it look like a furry inchworm with whiskers.

I followed Otter for a while, a few hundred yards along the flat horse corral area near the Showcase Theater, where the otter slipped into the tall grass by the canal that flows of the lagoon towards Santa Venetia. He periscoped once or twice to see where he was going--the grass was significantly taller than him, then slipped away in a rustle of grass blades, heading towards the bay.

But what the heck was he doing here--he's a RIVER otter, not a SEA otter. Turns out these guys aren't uncommon in San Francisco Bay's estuaries and lagoons--in fact they're well documented.


But why Marin Lagoon, filled with monstrous rubbery catfish and overloaded with mallard ducks and Canada geese. What's in it for the otter?

Rubbery catfish, mallards, and geese. And catfish. The otter eats them.

Back in 2006, a rash of Canada geese deaths made the news. Interestingly, it also occured in April. Here's the report:
04/15/2006 04:34:00 AM PDT
"A mysterious midnight predator is preying on a beloved flock of geese at the otherwise tranquil Civic Center lagoon, baffling officials who say it could be a coyote, dog, or, most likely, a river otter." The report continued: "Bob Wyatt, a county landscape services supervisor, said he believed a North American river otter was to blame. He recently spotted two otters in the lagoon. Then this week, Wyatt said a man walking in the park reported an otter feasting on a goose." And here I end with the report's very intriguing final line: "The voluminous rain this season may have helped the otters find their way into the lagoon, Wyatt said."

While I would question the use of the term "beloved" in conjunction with "geese," the report did have a jarringly familiar ring. I dug deeper, and found another startling series of reports in which river otters were drowning and eating brown pelicans in Rodeo Lagoon.

Twenty-five pound otter versus 15-pound pelican flapping its 8-foot wingspan? Guess what: otter wins every time. Apparently, for big birds like pelicans and geese, the otters are stealth hunters, swimming up underneath and grabbing the birds' feet or legs with needle-like teeth, then they pull the bird under to drown. Oh my.

I didn't see that kind of violence on my still spring dusk, just an impossibly cute fellow coming out of the water and going on an evening run with me. I hope I see him again. Hopefully he won't grab my feet.