Of all our local wildlife, the river otter may be the one people find most adorable, and it’s easy to see why. These playful, semi-aquatic swimmers have been known to slide across winter ice and down muddy riverbanks for no reason other than the fun of it. They can close their ears and nostrils underwater and use their sensitive whiskers to find prey in murky streams.

Join Leah Card, Furbearer Project Leader at the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources (DWR), for everything you ever wanted to know about otters. Leah will also introduce us to their lesser-known relatives in the mustelid (weasel) family: mink, weasels and fishers. Who’s living along our rivers, how do they survive our winters, and what can we do to help them thrive?

Leah oversees many of Virginia’s mammals, from coyotes and bobcats to beavers and muskrats. Before joining DWR, she worked as a field zoologist with the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation and as an ecologist with the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) and the Smithsonian. Originally from northwest Arkansas, she has spent much of her career studying mammals in Virginia and across the country.

Reserve a seat at the library or on Zoom