EDIT: I mistakened the animals for River Otters. In fact, they are mink. The clearest difference is that otters are much bigger than mink. An otter can be the size of a medium dog or the same length as the coyote who appears in the video.
We visited Lab Valley last weekend. In addition to pondering the scintillating topic of sconces, I checked a few trail cameras.
I had heard through the grapevine that there might be a few river otters in the creeks in the Lab Valley area. River otters are considered "extremely threatened" in our state. At one point, they had vanished from the state but then wildlife officials reintroduced them in 1976.
They've gradually increased in numbers since then. A friend said that she'd seen their tracks on a snow covered creek in the spring months. You can imagine that I was motivated to set up a couple of cams to try to get footage of them on the creek that goes through Lab Valley.
Believe it or not, I got some footage of an otter, and some of the footage was in the daytime. One cam captured him bounding along on the snow atop the creek. Another cam captured footage of him playing under our bridge! He swam under the ice, doubtless fishing.
I am so excited to have River Otters in Lab Valley! Check out the video.