Specimens in park collection: Mounted specimen, Longmire Museum, Park Headquarters.
Otters are geographically distributed over most of North America. The Pacific Otter is found from Oregon, Washington and British Columbia northward as far as the coast of Alaska.
Recent years have failed to produce any records from the park, and there is some doubt that the otter still exists in the area. However, it was reported by Dr. C. Hart Merriam as fairly common along the Nisqually Valley in 1897, while there were reports from the park in later years. Thus it may be that this animal is still present in some more remote sectors.
Although adapted for living either on land or in the water, the otter seems to prefer the water. It is a graceful, powerful swimmer, and delights in frolicking in pools deep enough to allow lots of freedom of action. Playful by nature, it often amuses itself by sliding down banks into the water, repeating the performance time and again until a well defined slide is made. Its food is made up of a wide variety of animal life, ranging from fish, crayfish, frogs, snakes and birds to small mammals.
In one way it is unfortunate that the otter has such a valuable pelt, because it has been relentlessly trapped wherever found; so much so, in fact, that only in areas protected against trapping is it likely to continue to hold its own or multiply.
LITTLE SPOTTED SKUNK
Spilogale gracilis latifrons Merriam
This animal has a slender body about a foot in length, with short legs and a plumelike tail. The general coloration is black with a prominent white spot on the forehead, four white stripes running from the head onto the back, white patches and stripes along the sides, the rump spotted white, and the tail broadly white-tipped.
Specimens in park collection: None.
The spotted skunks, often erroneously called “civet cats,” are found over most of the United States.
The little spotted skunk occurs on the west side of the Cascade Mountains of Washington, and through the Olympic Peninsula to the westward. The northern limits of range are not clearly defined.