BANGOR DAILY NEWS • December 2, 2022
For years, I’ve been on a mission to find otters in the wild. In Maine, they’re fairly common critters, but for some reason, no matter how much time I spend outdoors, I never see them. That is, until last week. In a true act of kindness, an acquaintance tipped me off to a group of river otters they’d recently seen swimming in a pond near the coast. I first encountered a white-tailed deer. Then I saw a beaver crouched on a thin sheet of ice. Mallard ducks swam along the shore. Nearby, a lone Canada goose stood on a pocket of ice. the otters were nowhere to be found. I decided to visit a couple of nearby ponds. Then came a splash. In the gloom of dusk, I saw them — three otters swimming through the frigid water of a small pond. ~ Aislinn Sarnacki