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	Podcast:		Local Features by WXPR
	Episode:		The Olympic Worthy River Otter
	Category:		Government & Organizations
	Duration:
	Publish Date:		2018-02-15 08:00:00
	Description:		The winter Olympics are going on now, not only in South Korea but also right here in Wisconsin’s Northwoods. In this episode of Wildlife Matters , the Masked Biologist highlights the athletic river otter. Right now, with the Olympics in full swing, I had the idea to try to find examples in the animal kingdom of wildlife that would compete in wintertime games. It didn’t work out very well. Wildlife activity changes in winter, especially in this kind of winter (the cold and snowy kind) and activity is often reduced to matters of life and death. There was only one exception that kept coming to mind—the otter. The reason otters come to mind in winter sports is because of their unique mode of overland travel; they use a combination of lunging hops and belly slides. In wintertime, these slides can be up to 60 feet long. These slides are so large and visible that we use them as indicators of otter numbers; wildlife management staff fly over rivers and streams and count the number of otter
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