Stories From Under The Sky

Than a Barrel of Monkeys

than a barrel of monkeys A TRIBE OF ACCOMPLISHED killers, most of the weasel clan take life seriously. There isn't much slapstick in the daily doings of a mink, ferret or wolverine, and if a skunk has any light moments, no one much cares. Yet, the biggest weasel on the upper river is an unabashed clown. This is the rare and beautiful river otter, a masterwork of aquatic design with the philosophy of a Groucho Marx. It's a boldly-made animal, sometimes measuring over four feet long and weighing twenty-five pounds. But for all its size, you'll probably never see a river otter - that is a sight usually reserved for solitary trappers and rivermen. Of all the rare and secret creatures along the northern Mississippi, none are shyer and more sensitive to human intrusion. In over forty years on and around the Upper Mississippi, George Kaufman - Iowa's senior conservation officer - has 49 seen only a few. In fact, otters are so seldom seen that they were once thought to be extinct along the upper river. But a few still hunt in the wild sloughs and islands, although no one is sure whether they are remnants of the original population or recruits that have drifted down into vacant habitat from northern Wisconsin and Minnesota. Joe Martelle has seen several, and has even raced one through a remote slough. Come winter, Joe strings his mink and muskrat traps for miles among the islands above and below the channel dam at Lynxville, Wisconsin. After the freeze-up his favorite mode of transportation - whether he's running his trapline or heading up to Lansing to see a movie - is on ice skates. Joe was skating over his trapline one bright, cold day when he sighted a big male otter beneath the clear river ice. Skating just behind the otter, Joe followed it as the animal shot along under the ice. It wasn't a one-sided race, for an otter can travel a quarter of a mile under water and even out-maneuver some fish. "Why, I could see that old cuss just as plain as anything," Joe told me. "He was every bit of four foot long and we had us a pretty good race, that otter and me. After a while he went his way and I went mine." Joe is the only riverman I know who has seen an un· trapped otter at such close range. You'll hear a lot of otter stories along the river, but most of them are tavern talk. A few otters have been taken in fishermen's nets and beaver traps along the Upper Mississippi, but such catches are as rare as they are unlawful. I've never seen an otter on the upper river, and I doubt if I ever will. Twice I have seen wild otters - once on the Upper Jordan in Michigan and again near the headwaters of the Bois Brule - but that doesn't count. The nearest I've come to seeing a Mississippi River otter was the tail fins of some freshly-devoured shad on a mudbar that was laced with the big, web-footed prints of Lutra. 50 Whimsical, fun.loving and playful, the river otter is one of our most appealing wild mammals but - unfortunately - is very rare in most areas. What I'm hoping for is to come drifting around the bend of some hidden slough some day and surprise a family of otters while they're sliding down a choice mudbank. For nothing shakes an otter up quite so much as a steep mudbank arid a little spare time. He climbs the bank and, with all four legs pointing backward, comes swooshing into the water. Whole otter families may join the fun, their wet bodies making the slide even slicker. When the stream is sealed by winter, they'll take to steep snow·covered hillsides like a troop of kids with Christmas sleds. 51 Although most weasels are morose and solitary, the otter loves company most of the year and is usually found in family groups. They may slide together for hours, or loll in the sun and take turns combing each other's dark, thick fur, "talking" lovingly in low mumbles. They often tumble and wrestle like children, and an old mother otter has been seen playing with a flat stone for hours, tossing it from paw to...