“River otters (Lontra canadensis) once moved almost everywhere in this basin. They swam with ease, hunted with precision and thrived in backwaters and bays thick with vegetation. But by the mid-20th century, they had vanished from the state of Ohio and become scarce across most of the watershed. The reasons stacked up quickly. Over-trapping for fur. Pollution that loaded fish with PCBs and other toxins. Wetlands drained for farms and cities. Rivers and streams straightened, dammed, stripped bare. By the 1970s, the silence spoke  volumes: the otter was gone, and with it an apex predator vital to the  food chain.

…

Today, river otters once more slip through marshes and estuaries across the Great Lakes basin. Breeding populations are thriving along the Sandusky, Maumee and Grand rivers in Ohio. Sightings are increasingly common in Georgian Bay (part of Lake Huron) and along Ontario’s north shore of Lake Erie. Otters have returned to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula too, where quiet backwaters and fish-filled streams are ideal habitat.

As predators at the top of the chain, otters help regulate fish and invertebrate numbers. Their presence signals something deeper, too: the water is clean, the system productive, the ecosystem whole enough to support them again.”

From Rewilding Magazine.