{"id":9428,"date":"2013-12-29T10:31:52","date_gmt":"2013-12-29T18:31:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=9428"},"modified":"2013-12-29T12:11:31","modified_gmt":"2013-12-29T20:11:31","slug":"otter-haven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=9428","title":{"rendered":"Otter haven"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I see river otters a few times a year, but only when they are wandering. This week, I saw them at home.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Tracks across the ice, local piles of snow, and openings in the ice, all hinted at a haven for otters. Soon there was confirmation as heads poked through the ice; some otters lounged on top, others hunted in the open water.<\/p>\n<p>The first otter spotted was sitting beside an opening in the ice and lazily looking around.<br \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-9434\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" alt=\"otter131227as\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/otter131227as.jpg\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Although it eventually vanished down the hole, first there was time for a snooze with a forepaw in the ice water.<br \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-9430\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/otter131227cs.jpg\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Elsewhere, a mother groomed her kit.<br \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-9429\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/otter131227ds.jpg\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><br \/>Best of all was a small group posing for what appears to be a family portrait. One kit has only half emerged.<br \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-9431\" style=\"font-size: 16px;\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/otter131227bs.jpg\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Ten meters from this otter, a sign reads: <em>This area contains historic <\/em>[sic]<em> mine wastes with elevated levels of\u00a0arsenic, lead, and other metals; and may be a health hazard.<\/em>\u00a0The otter might ask, &#8220;Why?&#8221;<br \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-9440\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/otter131227es2.jpg\" width=\"720\" height=\"720\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; I see river otters a few times a year, but only when they are wandering. This week, I saw them at home.\u00a0 Tracks across the ice, local piles of snow, and openings in the ice, all hinted at a &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=9428\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-mammals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9428"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9448,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9428\/revisions\/9448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}