Otter News Archive

Wayward otter draws crowd in downtown Barrington

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22nd January, 2008

Tom Killin Dalglish

Barrington Times, Barrington, Rhode Island, USA

BARRINGTON — A disoriented otter brought traffic to a near standstill and attracted a crowd late last Wednesday afternoon on County Road before being captured by a Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) official. Although witnesses reported first seeing the creature behind Staples, then in the parking lot behind The Daily Scoop and Pepperoni's, it wasn't until about 4:02 p.m. that a call for assistance was made to police, and thereafter to DEM, which had jurisdiction.

DEM officer Scott Bergemann arrived on the County Road scene at 4:37 p.m. to find the animal underneath a mini-van. About 15 minutes later, he said, he and a bystander had managed to trap the animal in a large Rubbermaid storage container.

An hour or so later, Mr. Bergemann said, he released the otter near the Wood River in Arcadia Management Area near Richmond/Hopkinton.

Mr. Bergemann said the area is well stocked with trout, which otters like to eat. He said the animal was a river otter, about three feet long.

Asked if the otter was a male or female, Mr. Bergemann said "I didn't get that close. He did roll over at one point in time, and it was most definitely a male."

"We don't get that many complaints about otters," Mr. Bergemann said.

He added "we couldn't use a snare pole to catch it because it had no neck." Mr. Bergemann said he had to rely on shooing the animal into the Rubbermaid container.

"It bit my pant leg," Mr. Bergemann said. "I think it was nervous."

Mr. Bergemann said he checked and the animal did not appear to be injured.

"It just didn't have anywhere to go," he said.

One of the first people to see the distressed otter was a long-time Barrington resident who wanted to remain anonymous. She said she first saw the animal behind Staples near the bike path, "where two boys who work at Shaw's saw it and called police."

Joe Benedetti, Barrington's animal control officer, also arrived at the scene. He said "it kept running under my van to keep warm."

The female witness said she and the two boys gave the otter snow, which it ate, evidently thirsty she surmised.

Next the animal went out onto County Road. "Everybody stopped to look. Everybody," said the witness. "This thing stopped all the traffic."

She said she and the two boys from Shaw's discovered that if they stamped their feet, the otter would follow them. One boy named the otter "Stanley," she said.

"It wasn't like it was a scary creature," she said. "It was cute and adorable."

She estimated the crowd watching the otter, many of them kids, numbered 40 or 50.

Armando Luis, the manager at the Getty station said the animal was "this long," holding his hands up about 2 to 3 feet apart.

Wendy Wajda, the owner of the station, had a slightly different estimate of size, and said the animal bit her left foot. She pointed to teeth marks on her boot to prove it. Ms. Wajda said the animal tried to cross County Road four or five times.

Ms. Wajda said a "poor woman with kids in the back of her mini-van" was stuck in the middle of the road when the otter went underneath the vehicle and wouldn't come out.