There are otters in the pond, several of them, and regularly. As a result we are witness to a textbook model fishery being upended by a reintroduced and supremely adept predator. It’s a reality that forces a shift in our expectations and proven pond management practices. It has me thinking wistfully of days when we caught pound size bluegill on demand, when the pond met the definition of perfect balance. It was a great pond, and I want it great again.
Otters were plentiful throughout most of the US when the Europeans arrived, but the combination of high demand for their pelts and general changes to aquatic habitats lead to their being extirpated from the majority of their original range, including indiana. In their absence, the science of small pond fisheries management was born, and pond owners who subscribed found rich rewards in the form of angling satisfaction and delectable table fare.
Otters were a part of the evolutionary process and their presence plays a role in a balanced ecosystem. In large lakes, river systems and reservoirs they are viewed favorably to overall system health and vitality. But in a small pond environment their refined predatory skills and voracious appetites have less than desirable consequences for the avid fisherman.
After a successful reintroduction effort beginning in 1995, Indiana recently removed otters from protected status and have now implemented a limited trapping season. This year I could legally take two animals, but here's the catch: Otters have huge territories. They're not like the weasel in the henhouse where a single individual can be identified and dispatched. An otter feasting yesterday in a reservoir 20 miles away could be in our pond today. The same goes for all the otters up and down the local rivers and associated tributaries.
Otters are apex predators so are preyed upon by nothing significant other than man, and trapping is no longer a popular or semi lucrative pastime, so there is little reason to believe their numbers will take a negative turn. They are a reintroduction success, as noteworthy as the return of white tailed deer, wild turkeys, bald eagles, and peregrine falcons, and each of these stories is a refreshing distraction from the near daily reporting of wild species in peril. But the presence of river otters forces a reevaluation of small pond fisheries and their managed outcomes. I can accept this new reality or I can declare a personal war against otters in an effort to maintain something from the past, something I deem good and valuable and necessary.
In politics today there is a great divide. At the heart of it are those determined to hold onto the past, paired against those ready and willing to introduce a new way to view our society and economy. Square in the middle of the standoff is the science affirmed fact that we're rapidly altering the life support systems that allowed our civilization to develop. We stand at a threshold where technologies promise a favorable way forward, where sustainable practices surround our food production, where energy and transportation employ green, renewable innovations, where our economy is underwritten by an uncompromising environmental ethic.
Our global population has been allowed to flourish under the influence of limited and highly polluting energy sources which now permeate every aspect of our lives. Everything we find good and valued and necessary, everything we use and consume and rely on has its roots in ancient carbon rich fuels, and we now face dire consequences from burning those fuels. Our atmosphere will soon have levels of CO2 which have not existed since before the dawn of civilized man and which are assured of bringing dramatic change to life as we know it.
How does an otter reintroduction compare to an earth altering event like climate change? It doesn't really, other than to remind me that the way forward will require a change in behavior and expectations. We can't lean on the past to justify the future. We can't use ignorance as an excuse, so we need to educate ourselves and be prepared to call out everyone, particularly our representatives, when they don't know the facts. It's not enough to know that climate change is happening, but that it matters, and postponing action is equivalent to denying the problem exists. We don't have the luxury of time. We have to reevaluate everything, including the way we live day to day, and resolve to make what personal changes we can. We need to recognize that being comfortable in our isolation makes us as guilty as those fighting to keep the status quo, that doing nothing is supporting elected and corporate leaders who are doing nothing.
Indiana river otters and climate change don't really belong on the same page. One represents a step toward ecosystem balance while the other carries the promise of global ecosystem upheaval. Small pond fisheries management developed in the absence of an influential apex predator and thus had outcomes which should have never been. Our world economy developed and is being driven by a highly subsidized and toxic energy system which likewise should have never been. Only one of these is worth my concern.
There are otters in the pond. How cool is that?
Neighbor put up 2-3 electric charged wire fence around his pond, says it keeps the otters out.
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