A few snippets I filmed for a documentary I have started about the Rio Grande River Otters.

For five years I lived in Pilar. New Mexico right on the Rio Grande River. One morning I saw my first otters out of the window of my house. Two of them had jumped up on the rock in the weir to eat a fish they had caught. Moments later, a bald eagle swooped down and stole the fish from the otter. That moment felt like I was in a National Geographic documentary. I had just woke and was making coffee and didn’t have my camera ready. I was so devistated that I hadn’t been able to capture that moment and vowed to always have it ready by the door in case they ever came back again.

Sure enough, they did come back. Normally we would hear them before we would see them; they communciate back and forth with a really loud chirp that sounds like a bird. From that day on, if I heard the chirp I was sprinting to get my camera.

I didn’t even know we had otter in Rio Grande when I first moved up to Pilar. Not many of the other residents had even seen one. They are very elusive and do not like people. The summers had a lot less signings unless it was early mornings / evening and no one was around. The river is filled with boaters floating by all summer long and they seem to not make themselves seen. The winter was a different story. That’s when they seemed to be all around. Not many people come up to Pilar when it’s cold and the otters seem to appreciate that. We would canoe the flat section even on the snowy days and would almost always see and otter or two.

I heard about Amigos Bravos doing a camera survey to document otter sightings. I signed up and had miles of river between Pilar and Rinconada to cover. Though we only had otters on the game cameras a few times, I did get to see all the other wildlife that also calls the Rio Grande home.