River otters return to Sunday Creek after a century
Rural Action's Joe Brehm found river otter tracks on Sunday Creek near Glouster, a stream once poisoned by mine runoff where otters had not been reported in more than 100 years.
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Joe Brehm, co-chief executive of Rural Action, found river otter tracks along Sunday Creek a few miles north of Glouster, WOUB reported. No one had reported otters on that stretch of the watershed in more than a century.
The creek was badly polluted by acidic water leaving abandoned mines. Rural Action has spent decades on the cleanup. The tracks, spotted on a fall hike, are one sign that the work is showing up in the mud. They do not by themselves prove a settled population, and the station treated them as the first report in a hundred years, not as a finished recovery.
For the classroom
Sunday Creek runs through Athens County, Ohio, a few miles north of Glouster. For a long time, water from old coal mines made the creek too sour for much to live in it. Rural Action has spent decades trying to clean that water up. Joe Brehm, who helps lead the group, was hiking when he saw river otter tracks in the mud. Nobody had reported otters on this part of the creek in more than 100 years. Tracks are not the same as a whole family of otters, but they mean at least one animal came back to a stream people have been repairing.
- Why would sour water from an old mine keep otters away?
- What is the difference between seeing tracks and seeing the animal?
- What is one way a town can tell a creek is getting healthier?
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