Otter is released on Provo River

HEBER — After 100 years, the otter has returned to the Provo River.

On Wednesday afternoon, two biologists with the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources released a 13-pound female river otter into the Provo River about a half-mile below the Jordanelle Dam.

It's the first of 20 to 30 otters biologists hope to release into the river, between the Jordanelle Dam and Deer Creek Reservoir, over the next two years as part of a three-year study of otter behavior and habitat.

"It's just wonderful to see a critter like this back on the landscape," said Bill Fenimore, a board member for Utah Wildlife in Need, the nonprofit organization funding the study.

Fenimore and others watched as the sleek otter slid out of a cage and into the water. After a brief swim, the animal returned to the rocks and seemed to pose for the cameras on the scene.

The otter was trapped Tuesday in the Green River in eastern Utah and transported the BYU, where it spent the night. Wednesday morning, an electronic transmitter the size of a tube of lip balm was implanted under its skin.

Over the next three years, BYU student Casey Day will track the otter and others that will be released using a handheld receiver with a one-mile range to see how well the animals respond to their new home, said Brock McMillan, a professor of wildlife biology at BYU who is supervising Day's project.

"We hope to find out what part of the system they use, where they den and other behavior," McMillan said.

River otters were once common in Utah, said Mark Hadley, a Division of Wildlife Resources specialist, but they disappeared from the state around the 1800s, victims of fur trapping and poor riverbank management.

The state outlawed the trapping of beavers and otters in 1899, but it was too late for the otters.

Utah started restoring river otters to the state 20 years ago on the Green River, which now has a healthy population of the animals. Otters have also been released in the Escalante River.

"We hope maybe within the next four months to have as many as 15 otters placed in the Provo," Hadley said.

The project is a joint effort of Wildlife in Need, which is providing the funds; DWR, which is supervising the release; and BYU, which is conducting the study.

Kim Hersey, a DWR sensitive-species specialist who supervised the release, said the otter, which is about a year old, could be pregnant, although only the otter knows for sure.

"We'll let them go, and they'll decide where they go from here," Hersey said.

e-mail: mhaddock@desnews.com