>>1305024Nicole Duplaix, who chairs theInternational Union for Conservation of Nature’s Otter Specialist Group, saidotters are known for being friendly animals, but, like most other creatures,keep their distance from humans.
She said that otter attacksinvolving humansare “extremely rare,” but that when they do occur,there isusually a reason.
“An unprovoked attack is very un-otter-like, unless there’s a cause you can’t see,” Duplaix, who teaches conservation biology at Oregon State University, said Thursday in a phone interview with The Washington Post.
She said that in instances in which otters have attacked, people had gotten too close to mothers with cubs or to their dens.
There are 13 species of otters around the world,according to theIntegrated Taxonomic Information System. In the United States, there are sea otters and the North American river otters, orCanadian otters.
River otters, which weigh between 10 and 33 pounds, have long slender bodies, short legs and webbed toes, according to a fact sheet from theSmithsonian Institution’s National ZooandConservation Biology Institute.
The creatures, which often share aquatic habitats withbeavers, enjoy “unpolluted water with a minimal human disturbance,” according to the National Zoo:
