Posted on 05/14/2021 7:30:14 AM PDT by NohSpinZone
Sea otters weigh about 50 to 70 pounds, they float on their backs and they spend most of their lives in the ocean. River otters are two or three times smaller, they swim with their bellies down and they live mostly on land but travel by water to find food. Sea otters nearly went extinct in the early 1900s because of the fur trade. River otters are common and of “least concern” in California, but are threatened or endangered in some other states.
But Heath offered a warning. “They’ll hiss at you if you get too close,” she said. “They’re vicious little critters.”
That information wasn’t a complete surprise, as I had heard about the river otter attack at Manzanita Lake last summer that sent a visitor to the hospital with severe wounds to the face. I told Heath about it, and she nodded.
“They go for your eyes, for your eyeballs,” she said.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
you know she bent down and tried to pet it. Its soooo cuuute.
So asking the obvious: river otters are rassssissss?
Sea otters nearly went extinct in the early 1900s because of the fur trade.
—
Time to return to the good old days ...
These cute things? They couldn't hurt a fly.
They just hurt fish.
The attack was by a river otter, which are smaller and far more common than their sea-faring cousins.
Most animals do this. People play around. Animals do not. Experience is a brutal teacher.
Look at that list - they all be killers - even a happy fun loving ferret will go beast mode on rodents if they see one.
I really enjoyed this video on what a determined mink and a dog can do to an infestation of rats in an old barn.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjebAlfrexA
40 or so years ago I went to visit my girl friend and her room mate. They were hiding in the closet because their pet ferret was having a bad day and had bitten both of them. He seemed perfectly friendly to me and was begging for food as usual.
River otters are, after all, first cousins to weasels and more distantly so to wolverines. The nasty temper goes with the genetics. The Mustelidae family of carnivores also includes minks, skunks, ferrets and various species of polecats.
Not, for the most part, domesticated, by any stretch of the imagination.
Ive watched his vids from the start of his project - that mink was sooo nasty at first I thought he would lose some fingers. And I never saw a muskrat before these videos and those things are also nasty, not like that song from America.
—
Time to return to the good old days ...
You otter be ashamed to say something like that.
Weasels ripped my flesh.
many animals that look cute can be quite the opposite. Hippos are the perfect example. Funny little round ears and a rather goofy looking face, plant-eaters. However, they’re one of the most vicious and territorial animals on the planet. Even crocs steer clear of them.
That’s why I always found the scene in the original Jurassic Park movie where Allen Grant is explaining to the kids that a Brachiosaur is “just like a big cow”. Perhaps it was. Perhaps it was no more aggressive than an elephant, only attacking if you threatened it. Or perhaps it was like a hippo with a permanently bad attitude toward everything non-hippo. For that matter, hippos don’t even seem to like other hippos
Right. Hippos kill more than 500 a year in Africa, making them the most dangerous land mammal
I was gonna post it if you hadn’t.
They reintroduced them to the rivers in northern Indiana
They wiped out all of the catfish in several farm ponds in the area
My buddy saw one dragging a 10 pound catfish up the bank while he was sitting in his deer stand
Crossbow and a backhoe settled that score
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.