Nice story. I've seen these in Canada years ago, they have a wide range. The state I live in (Ohio) is having some recent success with reintroducing them to the wild.

A friend of my daughters saw them in a river near her house north of here!! Pretty neat! I would love to see them someday. They are even on our liscense plate to preserve Pennsylvania wildlife. They replaced the saw-whet owl.

Otters are so neat. We enjoyed watching a family of four young'uns in VA once, and had a brief glimpse of one in Loxahatchee NWR in Florida this December.

In the 1980s, I lived in an apartment on a lake. We were occasionally woken by river otters chasing each other up and down the outside stairs. Now, we have river otters living in the [saltwater] bay at the foot of the hill. They sometimes come out during the day to play, acting as though there were no humans to worry about.

Oh yes, Ohio. After spending time and money to reintroduce Otters that had been entirely extirpated Ohio has announced they think they have enough Otters now. I think they have a trapping season.
Mary

That's a shame! Is that really necessary? Sarah

that's my beef with a lot of cases of reintroduction...I gotta question the motivation behind the effort. If it's being done by the state to provide hunters yet another new and exhilarating killing experience (read as "generate revenues") then I have mixed emotions. I tell myself that even if they are being hunted, at least these animals are once again part of the ecosystem.
Small comforts.

Hi Lynne. Where do you live in Melbourne? I saw an otter on John Rhodes boulevard once, about halfway between Aurora and 192.