Those who have not had close encounters with these creatures find them cute, playful and adorable. The reality is far, far different. These are disgusting, destructive animals. In this marina a couple of years ago, the otters gained access to a large boat and moved aboard. By the time the owners discovered this, they had deposited more than 50 gallons of feces everywhere inside and chewed cushions, furniture and wiring. The boat was a total write-off. They seem to especially like lines attached to and coiled on a cleat to use for family toilets, making releasing your docklines a most disgusting chore.
As for our unwanted boarder, Jane scared it off with a screech the likes of which have not been heard by the living or the dead. *Splash* It was gone (and I was trembling).
These are creatures of habit. Once they have adopted a cleat as a toilet, a dinghy as a place to raise their young, or a finger pier as a place to eat their prey, they keep coming back, attracted by the odors of their previous visits, and perhaps by habit. So, getting rid of them involves breaking a habit, and removing that odor that we find so disgusting and they feel has a homey feel.
We have taken a multi-prong approach.
- First, I should note that our freeboard is much too high for the otters to be able to board from the water. Nevertheless, once they have reached the finger pier, it is an easy hop, skip, and jump up our dock steps and then to bridge the gap to our deck. So, as our first deterrent, we suspended an aluminum muffin tin off of our lifeline gate, directly over the boarding position. Shiny, moving. Maybe it will work, maybe not - these are clever creatures. But it was all we had initially.
- Working on the odor issue, we carefully hosed off all the feces on our finger pier and our cleats.
- Next, we bought a garden sprayer and a gallon of vinegar. We frequently spray the edges of the dock where they climb out of the water and along the edges of our finger pier.
- We scattered mothballs (naphthalene) around everywhere.
- And finally, an attempt at physical exclusion: we put these spike sheets on our dock steps whenever we are absent.
Of course, the marina denies any responsibility.
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2 comments:
Good grief! Makes the seagull problem seem trivial. Good luck!
Over on J dock at Cap Sante Marina I hosed everything of our finger twice and that seems to have been sufficient. The presence of those guys and the Harbor Seal that rests most days on the empty finger at J -67 daily astound me how clean our marina appears to be. The one time I saw the river otters one had a shrimp in it's mouth. In the summer a Great Blue Heron comes in at high tide to the shore at the northwest corner near the dog park!!
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