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This is a Non-Federal dataset covered by different Terms of Use than Data.gov.

River Otters - High Mountain Lakes [ds813]

Metadata Updated: November 23, 2025

In California, River Otters (Lontra canadensis) are most commonly associated with food-rich lowland aquatic habitats where they forage primarily on fish and crustaceans. Their distribution in high-elevation montane regions of the state, areas in which fish and crayfish were absent historically, is largely unknown. We compiled occurrence records of River Otters in California from elevations >1100 m, and evaluated them using evidentiary standards. Based on 126 records, we report the widespread presence of River Otters in the Klamath, southern Cascades, and Sierra Nevada mountain ranges, including at elevations exceeding 3000 m. Sixty-three percent of the records met our definition as ''verified'', and the remaining 37% were considered ''unverified''. The distribution of observations through time and habitats in which observations were made were similar between verified and unverified records. River Otter records spanned the period from 1900 to 2017, with 50% occurring between 1991 and 2010. Ninety-three percent of the water bodies with records of River Otters contained nonnative prey (fish and crayfish). Those lacking nonnative prey all supported native prey, including amphibians and reptiles. Based on records that contained River Otter foraging observations, nonnative fishes and crayfish were represented in 89% of the total accounts, and native frogs and invertebrates were represented in 22%. It remains unclear whether River Otters occurred in California's high-elevation water bodies prior to the introduction of fish and crayfish, and additional research is needed to understand the possible influence of nonnative prey in allowing River Otters to expand their distribution in these habitats.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. Non-Federal: This dataset is covered by different Terms of Use than Data.gov. License: See this page for license information.

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Dates

Metadata Created Date July 24, 2025
Metadata Updated Date November 23, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from State of California

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date July 24, 2025
Metadata Updated Date November 23, 2025
Publisher California Department of Fish and Wildlife
Maintainer
Identifier a4f6e538-af3d-41b4-b14e-615972686108
Data First Published 2018-10-17T21:42:40.000Z
Data Last Modified 2020-03-19T16:04:56.697Z
Category Natural Resources
Public Access Level public
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 6706917b-26dd-431b-bd7a-545d97d296e2
Harvest Source Id 3ba8a0c1-5dc2-4897-940f-81922d3cf8bc
Harvest Source Title State of California
License http://www.opendefinition.org/licenses/cc-by
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash d0f55f450649c2b5e63cbd8ec6779c88cd77344279f646a003fb50389d6a57cd
Source Schema Version 1.1

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