8 
FOREST AND STREAM 
January, 1921 
THE SEA OTTER AND LAND OTTER 
. SINCE THE FIRST OF THESE VALUABLE FUR-BEARING ANIMALS HAS BEEN ALMOST 
EXTERMINATED IT BEHOOVES US TO JUDICIOUSLY CARE FOR THE SECOND 
Z OOLOGICALLY they may not be 
related but as to furs and habits 
they are; the Sea-Otter, the King 
of all fur-bearing animals of the sea, 
now all but extinct, and the Land-Otter, 
whose fur stands at the head of the 
list for beauty and durability. 
The Land-Otter is almost as fond of 
water as the Sea-Otter; but its habitat 
is the land, not the water. Its favorite 
food is fish. Its webbed feet carry it 
over swampy ground. Its pointed flat 
tail acts as rudder when swimming, and 
its little short legs act as motors when 
running over land. Differing from its 
lesser brothers of the weasel family, 
the Land-Otter is neither a thief, nor 
a robber, neither a blood-sucker nor a 
wanton assassin. He is a night hunter, 
too, but no enemy of man and under 
care becomes a good-natured pet. In 
length the Land-Otter is 3 to 3% feet 
with a tail about 16 inches long; and 
his ranging ground used to be from 
Florida to Alaska; but settlement has 
drained his old time solitary ponds; and 
the Otter to-day is rarely trapped in 
the South, the best pelts now coming 
from Labrador, Athabasca, the Rocky 
Mountains and Alaska. Ten years ago, 
the catch of Land-Otter for America 
used to run at 30,000 a year. To-day, I 
should be surprised if the catch ever 
exceeded 10,000. In only 1904, a Land- 
Otter pelt sold for $20; and the price 
was considered high. In the Montreal 
sale of 1920, Labrador Otter sold for 
$100 plus. Labrador and Kamchatka 
Otter rank as the best in the fur trade ; 
and the two best markets for Otter 
skins were in Russia and Canada. Ow- 
ing to the demoralization of Russia by 
the War, that market has been cut off. 
Yet Otter prices have moved up to $100 
plus. In the South, the Otter has al- 
ready been extirpated. In the North, 
I doubt if he will ever be; for he is 
a lover of solitary places and has in- 
stinct, cunning and dexterity. 
It has always been a matter of amaze- 
ment to me that the American markets 
have not had greater demand for Otter. 
The reasons for this are many. The 
fur is a heavier pelage than the Ameri- 
can climate requires; and while it is 
exquisitely beautiful, it is not a showy 
fur. The best Otter on the American 
market is seen in men’s overcoat col- 
lars. Much of the Otter fur done up 
as women’s coats, is the plucked Otter 
siding or rubbed belly fur, which has 
been discarded and dyed to imitate 
beaver or seal. The true Otter is un- 
dyed, a deep glossy, shiny brown, 
almost black in the best pelts, with 
rough overhairs, which are often but 
ought never to be cut down, and a fur 
proper thicker than any other fur on 
the market. Indeed, the fur below the 
long hairs is almost impenetrable. Be- 
neath this is another downy fur, which 
is dyed to imitate seal and beaver. 
By AGNES LAUT 
U NDYED Otter has long overhairs a 
shade darker than the next layer of 
thick fur. That is — if the under fur 
is brown, the long hairs will be a darker 
brown. If the under fur is almost black 
the overhair will be black with a brown 
tinge; and below these layers is an- 
other fur, which is used for imitations. 
To me, there is no equal to it in the 
world for combined utility and beauty 
and durability in all weather, wet or 
dry, sunny or cloudy, raw or penetrat- 
ing frost. In weight, it is heavy to 
carry. It is also expensive, too ex- 
pensive for a climate where you wear 
From group in the American Museum of Nat- 
ural History. 
The Land Otter 
a fur coat for only two months of the 
year; but in Canada and Russia, Otter 
can be worn as a coat by day for five 
months of the year and as an evening 
wrap for a lifetime. It does not cost so 
much as mink, marten, sable, chinchilla, 
mole; but it ranks up next to these ex- 
pensive furs. I may say in all the four- 
teen or fifteen years I have lived in the 
United States, I have never seen an 
Otter coat which had not something 
which a Canadian or Russian would re- 
ject. Either it was the belly and side 
fur plucked and dyed to imitate beaver 
or seal, with the real unplucked otter 
for collar and cuffs; or it had been 
silvered by chemicals to imitate Russian 
Sable, which must certainly weaken the 
pelt, made it an imitation of a true fur 
and brought the price up close to the 
cost of marten or mink. Also those 
silvered pelts were of very small ani- 
mals; and when the combination of a 
small pelt and chemicals is found, 
though you may be told it “looks just 
like marten with the stripe left out” — 
look out for unprime fur, doctored. 
Prime Otter is dark as seal, deep as fox, 
tough as buffalo, and rich as mahogany. 
I quote the Canadian Conservation 
Report : 
“Full grown Canadian otters are 
about 4 feet in total length and weigh 
approximately 20 to 30 pounds. Their 
striking characteristics are long, lithe 
bodies, tapering into long, muscular, 
flattened tails; very short legs, fully 
webbed hind feet; short ears, keen lit- 
tle eyes and a beautiful coat of dense, 
dark brown fur. They are weasel-like 
in their quickness, extremely muscular 
and, for their size, fearless and savage 
fighters. 
“Many kinds of otter occur in 
different parts of the world, but 
the largest and most valuable 
for fur are those of North Amer- 
ica, Lutra canadensis, and its several 
closely related sub-species or geographic 
varieties. Considering their wide range 
from Labrador to Alaska and from neaT 
the Arctic coast to Florida and Ari- 
zona, they show surprisingly little 
variation in size or in color or quality 
of fur. This is, of course, owing to 
their aquatic habits and to the nearly 
uniform temperature of water in win- 
ter over almost the whole continent. 
“For breeding purposes otters with 
the most valuable coats should be se- 
lected, preferably the very dark indi- 
viduals from Eastern Canada, Labra- 
dor, Newfoundland, or Maine. Consid- 
erable individual variation is shown and 
the grade of fur could doubtless be 
steadily improved by selective breeding. 
The largest individuals are from Alas- 
ka and the Northwest, but the skins of 
these are less valuable than those of 
the smaller and darker animals of the 
Northeast. The highest quotations are 
always for skins from Canada and the 
Eastern United States. 
“The prime requisite for success in 
raising any fur-bearing animals is a 
thorough knowledge of their habits, 
especially breeding and food habits. The 
following notes are offered as sugges- 
tions in conducting experiments with 
otters : 
“Otters are semi-aquatic, are power- 
ful and rapid swimmers, able to stay 
under water for a considerable time in 
pursuit of prey or in escaping from 
enemies, but they are well adapted to 
dry land. They make long journeys 
overland from one stream to another 
and especially delight in travelling over 
soft snow, on which they run and slide 
on their silky bellies with apparent en- 
joyment. On freshly fallen snow or 
wet snow they often prefer this method 
of travelling and will follow the banks 
