Two attacks in three weeks: are river otters really dangerous?

59 reported river otter attacks in 148 years suggests low risk––if people & dogs maintain a respectful distance

ABSAROKEE,  Montana;  PLUMAS NATIONAL FOREST, California––Two rare river otter attacks within a three weeks on women enjoying summer swims have attracted more media notice than the four most recent human fatalities inflicted by pit bulls.

But then,  river otters bite people far less often than pit bulls kill people.

The four pit bull victims all were adult males, ages 56,  27,  71,  and 68,  all of whom were alone when attacked in Des Chutes County,  Oregon;  Skipperville,  Alabama;  Ocean View Estates,  Hawaii;  and Tyrone Township,  Michigan.

ANIMALS 24-7 is awaiting the official release of various information pertaining to those four attacks to publish further details.

Actress Crystal Finn was most recent otter victim

The most recent river otter victim,  meanwhile,  was New York City actress Crystal Finn,  41,  “who performed alongside Debra Messing in the Broadway play Birthday Candles last year and appeared as Lauren Pawson this year on the hit TV series Succession,”  reported Lisa M. Krieger and Ethan Baron for Bay Area News Group.

Finn on July 11,  2023 “joined cousins for a swim in the Middle Fork of the Feather River near the family’s property on the edge of Plumas National Forest,”  Krieger and Baron reported.

“I felt something really sharp on my butt,  and started screaming,”  Finn told Krieger and Baron.

“Then I felt a bite on my leg.  Then I saw these three little heads pop up,  right in front of me.  But I was so disoriented. Seeing otters — initially,  it just didn’t add up.”

The otters bit Finn twice more,  “biting her shin and the back of her knee,”  Krieger and Baron wrote,  while she swam to the shore,  keeping her face above water.

Montana attack

Jen Royce and two female friends,  all from Absarokee,  Montana,  near Yellowstone National Park,  were attacked 20 days later while swimming on the Jefferson River at about 8:15 p.m. to celebrate Royce’s birthday.

“We were in the middle of the river at a wide stretch,  not near the shore,  and we didn’t even know the otter/otters were there until we were attacked,”  Royce posted to Facebook.

“I saw one otter right behind my friend,”  Royce said,  “before it attacked.  I didn’t even have a chance to get the words ‘there is an otter behind you’ out of me before it attacked her.”

All three women were badly hurt.  The otter “bit my face in several places,  both of my ears, my arms,  my hands,  my legs,  my thighs,  and my ankle,”  Royce recounted.  “My friends were bitten on the hands and on their bottoms.  One friend’s thumb was shredded  and she has bite marks all over her body as well.”

Rescued by helicopter

Scattering to either side of the Jefferson River,  one victim after taking refuge for a time on a rock in mid-river,  the women were rescued by helicopter.

No one took the severity of the otter attack lightly,  but as Daily Montanan editor-in-chief Darrell Ehrlick observed,  the victims “stood about a near-equal chance of being charged by an angry unicorn.

“Otter attacks with injuries or fatalities are so rare,”  Ehrlick wrote,  “that biologists have tracked a very specific number:  there have only been 59 documented attacks by otters of all species.  Since 1875.  Worldwide.”

No otter has ever killed a human

ANIMALS 24-7,  logging animal attacks on humans of all sorts for more than 40 years,  has actually collected documentation of 59 attacks by North American river otters resulting in human injury,  as well as nine attacks by other otter species.

No otter attack on record,  by any species anywhere ever,  has resulted in a human death.

Pit bulls by contrast killed 41 Americans and Canadians in 2022 and 43 in 2021.

Of the 59 river otter attacks of which ANIMALS 24-7 has documentation,  34,  or 52%,  were by otters who were subsequently found to be rabid.

Dogs & otter “rafts”

Among non-rabid otter attacks,  the majority appear to have involved either the presence of dogs,  who were targeted by the otters first,  with human injuries following intervention to try to save the dogs,  or multiple otters,  indicating that the human victims may have inadvertently broken up an otter “raft,”  meaning a family group of otters swimming together.

Most non-rabid otter attacks have come during the summer months,  when humans are of course most likely to go swimming in otter habitat,  but also when river otter families are usually still together,  even though the young of the year will have grown almost to adult size.

River otter attacks on humans are rare enough that sometimes years pass between reports of any.

Alaska otter attacks

The most recent river otter attacks reported before those of July/August 2023 came in Alaska in September 2021.

“Last week,  a woman was bitten while rescuing her dog from otters at a lake,”  reported Amanda Holpuch of the Anchorage Daily News.  “The same day,  in another part of the city,  a group of otters attacked a dog.

“Earlier this month,  a nine-year-old boy went to the emergency room after four otters chased him and his friends while they played near a duck pond in east Anchorage,”  Holpuch recounted.

“The boy’s mother,  Tiffany Fernandez, told the Anchorage Daily News:  ‘He has two fang marks on his back thigh and one on the front thigh on each leg,’  with ‘one puncture wound on his foot.'”

Porcupine quills

“In July 2021,”  Holpuch added,  “a river otter tested positive for rabies more than 300 miles away in Dillingham,  Alaska,  which is reachable only by boat or plane.”

Wildlife biologist Bryan Reiley,  Holpuch recalled,  “told Alaska Public Media the otter was covered in porcupine quills.  The two species rarely interact because they prefer water and land respectively.”

Reported Ben Turner of Live Science,  following up a week later,  “Although no one knows how many otters are behind these incidents,  David Battle,  a wildlife biologist at the Alaska Department of Fish & Game,  suspects that [the Anchorage attacks] may be just one group.”

Explained Battle,  “There always seem to have been four or five otters involved in all the incidents.  Considering the rarity of this behavior in otters,  and the fact that our first reported attack [in Anchorage] was in 2019,  and it’s happened several times since then,  this is very likely one group that has stayed together for a while,  or that come together frequently over a period of time.”

“Defensive reaction to dogs”

Continued Turner,  “Otter groups tend to consist of either a mother with pups,  or several bachelor males. Battle said that as multiple otters were reported engaging in attacks,  it is likely that the group is a collection of adult otters,  as opposed to a mother otter defending her young.

“Given the involvement of dogs in nearly all of the incidents,  the most probable explanation for the otters’ aggressive behavior is a defensive reaction to dogs,”  Battle suggested via Turner.

Concluded Battle,  “Most otters never display this strong a reaction to dogs or people.  By and large,  they are curious animals,  but not typically aggressive toward people or dogs.  It is possible there was some sort of incident involving a dog that led them down this path,”  Battle speculated, “after which the otters learned to take aggressive action against dogs,  but it’s impossible to say.”

The “book” on otter attacks

The “book” on otter attacks,  to the extent there is one,  is “A Review of Violent or Fatal Otter Attacks,”  a misnomer since it includes no fatalities even rumored,  by Canadian researchers Michael Belanger, Nicole Clough,  Nesime Askin,  Luke Tan,  and Carin Wittnich,  published by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature Specialist Group Bulletin in 2011.

“In light of recent otter attacks in Florida,”  the team wrote,  “we reviewed all evidence of otter attacks on humans for any geographical and temporal relationships from the earliest (1875) to the most recent” at the time of writing,  in December 2010.

“There were a total of 39 anecdotal articles and four scientific publications found dealing with violent human-otter interaction (bites, attacks, deaths).

“Otters are known to be very territorial”

“The majority of attacks [77%] dealt with the North American otter (Lontra canadensis) and geographically occurred most often in Florida (38%).  The greatest number of attacks occurred from 1990 to 2009 (51%).  Within the 39 documented anecdotal reports of otter attacks, rabies was confirmed in 24 cases (66%).

“Otters are known to be very territorial in nature and in North America have had increases in population numbers.  In certain areas where otters occur naturally (Florida),”  the Canadian team concluded,  “there has been a huge surge of human expansion,  which has encroached upon the otter’s natural habitat.  This encroachment into the otter’s habitat may be one reason for the recent increases of otter attacks upon humans.”

In short,  just as bears poop in the woods,  otters poop in the water,  and just as getting too close to bears in the woods is a not a good idea,  getting too close to otters in the water can be dangerous;  but if one maintains a respectful distance from either bears or otters,  and keeps one’s dogs away too,  they are unlikely to come looking for trouble.

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