Otters captured on trail cam playing in snow at Pennsylvania state park
Otters were captured playing in the snow on a trail camera in a Pennsylvania state park.
Chapman State Park in Warren County posted a video to Facebook from earlier this month, showing a pair of otters rolling around and sliding in the snow. The critters play with each other before slipping back into the forest.
"Otters are extremely curious and playful and often slide on ice or snow, shoot down slick muddy banks into creeks, play with food and wrestle each other," Chapman State Park said in a Facebook post. "Few people are lucky enough to see otters in the wild, but those who do, rarely forget the experience."
The park called the resurgence of river otters in North America "one of the greatest success stories" of modern wildlife conservation. Before 1900, the degradation of water quality and habitat, human encroachment and unregulated harvest led to a 75% decline in North American otter populations.
Though otters were never completely extirpated from Pennsylvania, the state park says their numbers were vastly reduced. Thanks to restoration efforts in Pennsylvania and neighboring states that started in the 1970s, the range of otters significantly expanded.
Now otter populations are increasing or stable across their range, the park says. The densest otter populations are in the northwestern and northeastern counties.
Chapman State Park is located in northwestern Pennsylvania. According to the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, the 862-acre state is an "Oasis of recreational facilities in a vast area of wilderness" located next to the Allegheny National Forest.