From the Ground Up: Private lakes, ponds see over-predation from river otters

BRYAN, Texas (KBTX) - “Today I would say that I’ve seen a 25-75% decrease in the amount of harvestable fish in private lakes because of predation by river otters.”

Lochow Ranch is just one of many lake management companies plagued by otters, but president and owner, John Jones, says that wasn’t always the case.

“Years ago when I first got into the business, there wasn’t a lot of otters, and I have some theories on the hows and whys, but we’ve watched them explode,” Jones said.

Otters are native to Texas, and they historically ranged throughout eastern Texas along the Red River as well as along the Brazos and Colorado Rivers in central Texas. Just one otter can consume anywhere from 7 to 28 pounds of fish each day, so when multiple hunt together, a pond’s fish population can plummet quickly.

“If you have a nice private lake, with a few 100 pounds of bass, and a family of six otters comes in for a few nights, you don’t notice them, and you go from having [a lot of] bass and catfish, to [very few] bass and catfish, overnight,” Jones said.

Although issues like algae blooms, flooding, and pollution can have indirect impacts on fish populations, Jones said the main culprit is the river otter.

“The main predatory challenge that we have today as lake managers is river otters,” Jones said.

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