The biologist squatted beneath a busy highway bridge in White Oak and studied the creek bank for signs of life.

Hot on the trail of an elusive critter, Charlie Muller pointed to a set of paw prints that emerged from the milky green water.

“Right here’s where he came up,” he said.

River otters had been here.

Muller and other wildlife biologists are tracking otters this spring for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. They believe the shy but playful mammals are on the rise in the Piney Woods, and they hope the study will help them understand where the animals live and how many are out there.

“It’s a species that not a lot is known about here in East Texas,” he said.

Muller is monitoring the otters at five spots in Gregg County and 10 spots in Rusk County. On a recent morning, he found several well-preserved tracks beneath a U.S. 80 bridge in White Oak.

As cars and trucks thundered overheard, Muller carefully studied the prints.

From them, he deduced that two river otters had emerged from the water sometime in the previous week. They scrambled along the bank for a couple of yards before vanishing into the wide, murky creek.

“I believe they were trying to stir up frogs or any other kind of prey and spook them into the water,” Muller said.

Once the frogs are in the water, they are easier to catch, he explained.

“River otters are efficient hunters,” he said. “They are very, very agile swimmers that are built to go through the water, and they have a wide tail that is used like a rudder so they can swim very quickly.”

On land, they waddle on squat legs, and they are always fun to watch, Muller said.

“They’re furry and cute, they’re action-packed and they’re playful,” he said. “They remind you of kids playing because they’re so full of energy.”

“You ever been to the Tyler zoo? They’re a favorite, no doubt.”

Playing at the zoo

In the wild, river otters keep their distance from humans. But at Caldwell Zoo in Tyler, otters seem to enjoy the company of zookeepers and visitors, according to mammal curator Scotty Stainback.

“A lot of times children will get in front of the viewing glass and run back and forth, and they actually play chase with the kids,” he said. “They go back and forth and they’ll follow you, and they like to look out the window and see what stuff (the visitors are) doing.

“I guess you could say they like to people-watch. They wonder about us just as much as we wonder about them.”

From April through the summer months, zookeepers give demonstrations on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. The keepers talk about the otters while the otters hunt for perch.

“People just like them,” Stainback said. “Usually in the morning is the best time to catch them moving around, but they do stay active. They’re always swimming, always in the water. They’ve got such a high metabolism that they constantly hunt and eat.”

Spend enough time with the otters and you notice that different personalities emerge, he said.

“We’ve got one that likes to interact with the keepers; really likes attention,” he said. “Then we’ve got another who is standoffish and stays at the back of the stall.

“A couple of boys are real playful and always picking at each other. They like to roughhouse and just be boys.”

Finding otters in the wild

As fewer people trap otters for their pelts, their numbers continue to grow, Muller and Stainback said.

More people than ever are reporting sightings, Stainback said, and many of those people hadn’t even been aware that river otters were native to East Texas.

“I grew up in this area and had never seen one,” he said. “A couple of years ago, right on the Neches River, I was out there doing some boating down the river and I looked up and one was right in front of me.

“It’s pretty neat to see one in the wild and just be quiet and watch it play and watch it hunt. It’s a fascinating thing.”

Muller, still standing below the highway bridge in White Oak, said the state wildlife department surveys otters every three years. This year, however, biologists are being more thorough.

They are returning to the same site once a week for six weeks and getting permission to study the otters on adjacent private property. They hope the exercise will help them develop new methods to count the population more accurately.

A few people still trap river otters in East Texas, Muller said, and a pelt can fetch up to $100 when the market is high.

It’s legal to trap otters but illegal to shoot them. If you see a river otter in the wild, he said, consider yourself lucky.

“Be real still,” he said. “They’ll be very curious.”

* * *

River otters thriving in area

STREAMLINED BODY

– The river otter is a long, slender weasel with glossy, dark brown fur and a torpedo-shaped body. It has webbed feet, a short neck and legs, and a very streamlined body adapted for life in lakes, rivers, streams and marshes.

NIMBLE IN WATER

– Otters are superb swimmers and divers and can remain underwater for several minutes. Although they prefer living near the water, they also can travel long distances on land from one body of water to another. Their short legs and long, slender physique make their movements on land seem awkward, but they are graceful and nimble in the water.

RARELY SEEN

– Otters wander a great deal through their habitats. Because of that, they are scarce in most localities. They are usually shy, inconspicuous creatures that are rarely seen even though they are active throughout the year.

DISTRIBUTION

– Although the river otter is now found in the eastern half of the state, it was probably once distributed throughout the Panhandle, north-central and southern Texas.

DIET

– Otters eat fish, crustaceans, mollusks, amphibians, reptiles, invertebrates, birds and mammals. They especially like crayfish.

Sources: Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and the Natural Science Research Laboratory at Texas Tech University