ND Otters?

[LBrandt]

Otters are the clowns of the animal world. I could set and watch them all day, but if cornered they can and will get nasty.

 

[Davy Crockett]

I see this topic is 9 years old but wondering if anyone has been seeing Otters in the Devils Lake basin ?
I sure thought I'd know the difference between a Mink and an otter but I'm not sure what I watched off and on for 2 days . At first I just assumed it was a dandy big male Mink but the more I saw of him the more I thought it looked too big for a Mink . He was coming up from under a big dead standing tree on the ice close to 100 yards away and eating fish. Then he would swim about 200 yards from there and come up a hole out in a hole in the ice and I assume eating fish there too, back and forth off and on for two days but it never got up and walked saw it stand once and turn around but mostly hung low and laid on it's belly. It drove me nuts that I didn't have my binos. He was a fishing machine .

I know they are in the Turtle Mountains , same with Pine martins and fishers.

 

[Eatsleeptrap]

East end of Lake Coe in Eddy county has a pair. Seen them, sometimes just one, off and on the last couple of years. The culvert area is open, way on the east end, you could sit up Hwy 15 to the east and watch them play. The closer you get they hide and just pop up for air.

 

[MSA]

I was just hanging out with a South African that works around Devils Lake, on the topic of American animals, he told me about seeing otters all around, I thought maybe he was seeing mink....he showed me pics, and they were definitely otters.