River otters are being seen again along Sunday Creek in Athens County after a very long absence from southeast Ohio, according to a report published Oct. 28 by WOUB. The Athens-based public broadcaster followed tracks on a muddy bank a few miles north of Glouster, where Joe Brehm pointed out where he first noticed the animals.
“That muddy little bank there, that’s where I first saw ’em,” Brehm told WOUB, referring to the river otter tracks he found along the trail by Sunday Creek. WOUB reported the sighting as part of a look at otters returning to the region, a development local walkers might easily miss because the animals are elusive and often most active when few people are on the creek bank.
For Ohio, the return has been decades in the making. According to Columbus and Franklin County Metro Parks, which summarized interviews with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Wildlife, river otters were extirpated from Ohio by the mid-1950s after habitat loss, wetland drainage and unregulated trapping, and the Division of Wildlife began reintroducing them in 1986.
Metro Parks reported that between 1986 and 1993, 123 otters captured in the southern United States were released into eastern Ohio watersheds, including the Grand River, Killbuck Creek, the Little Muskingum River and Stillwater Creek. The population grew from those releases, Metro Parks reported, and otters were removed from Ohio’s list of endangered species in 2002.
That history helps explain why tracks near Glouster matter beyond a single sighting. Otters depend on fish and other aquatic food, clean water and forested corridors along rivers and streams, according to the background reported by Metro Parks and the Division of Wildlife, so their presence is read by wildlife staff as a sign that a watershed can support them. Metro Parks reported otters now occur in most Ohio counties, with the highest numbers near the original release watersheds in eastern Ohio.
The Division of Wildlife tracks that spread in part through public reports. According to Ohio Outdoor News’ reporting on a Division of Wildlife request, biologists use sightings submitted through the Wildlife Reporting System at wildohio.gov and the HuntFish OH app to monitor secretive species including river otters, and they also survey for signs such as tracks and scat, Metro Parks reported.
For Athens County residents, WOUB’s report is a reminder to watch quietly and report what they see rather than approach an animal. A glimpse on Sunday Creek does not mean otters are common there yet, and WOUB presented the tracks as evidence of a return after a long absence, not a guarantee for visitors. Still, after being gone from Ohio within living memory, an otter leaving tracks north of Glouster is good news for the creek — and for everyone who walks it.