I ran into Reed biology professor Steve Black on the canyon's blue bridge on a sunny fall day. Steve was out collecting spiders for his research while on sabbatical this year. Nice to be able to do research 5 minutes away from the lab!
Recently in wildlife in the canyon Category
Here's a shot of a heron in the lake by Reed employee Paige Balter, taken March 6. While she was watching the crane, it had a little afternoon lunch of something in the water (hopefully not any spawning fish!).
What I originally thought was a beaver turned out to be an North American River Otter. There's some good info on them in Wikipedia as well as the Oregon Zoo and the Nature Conservancy webpages. According to the Seattle zoo, "otter populations continue to decline as a result
of water pollution, overfishing of commercial stock, and habitat destruction." Fur trapping is the greatest threat, however, with over 30,000 otter pelts sold each year in the US and Canada (Wikipedia statistic). The species is not listed as endangered nationally, but it is in many states (though not Oregon).
