Tracking Otters

The sighting began on the South transect around 9:00am and lasted till around 9:50am. The current was flowing at a slow but consistent pace out of the canal. Several boats passed by just before the sighting began, and one passed as the otters were deep in the flooded forest.

I spotted the first otter (officially the Neotropical river otter) near the mouth of the canal. It was fishing along the west bank. On noticing me, it was startled and dove underwater. I tracked it by its bubble trail, and it popped up on the opposite bank and swam north at a fast pace, coming up to breathe frequently. At this point, I lost it for a few minutes, but found it around a bend, having joined a second otter. They were on the bank acting very social, climbing up onto a log, then back down and out onto the bank again. [Here's a video that Ryan took (from Caño Palma Instagram page): https://www.instagram.com/p/Cl6Wa6mjKfM/]

I was able to tell that one was a bit larger. It seemed to have more white on the chest and throat whereas the smaller one was almost all brown. They began moving up the canal staying on the east bank. I managed to follow them deep into a pocket in the tree line and saw one of them catch a small suckermouth catfish. While I watched, they foraged underwater and then moved up onto a small island. After a while, they left this pocket, only seeming to be semi-disturbed by my close proximity. The larger of the two otters seemed to almost always be in the front as they moved upriver. After catching another fish, I could hear the otter gnawing on it behind one of the flooded trees.

At one point, when I got close to the larger otter, it snorted at me, looked down the canal at the smaller otter that gave a "yip" call, and then dove underwater. The "yip" call was made frequently back and forth as they foraged and as they were startled by me at various points. They continued to forage up the east bank of the canal and deep into various pockets of flooded forest. They would enter pockets and then exit in the same area, always working along the main bank of the canal before entering a new pocket upstream. I was able to get a final good video clip of the pair exiting a flooded forest pocket, again the larger one taking the lead.

Finally, about halfway between the station and the mouth of the canal, the otters crossed the canal and went deep into impenetrable flooded forest on the west side. This was roughly in the same area where we'd seen a lone large otter with significant white on its throat and chest the afternoon prior while doing an otter survey.