Uncommon otter assault injures three girls floating on internal tubes on fashionable Montana river
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A uncommon assault by a river otter in southern Montana has injured three girls floating on internal tubes
ByMATTHEW BROWN Related Press
This October, 2022 picture supplied by the Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, exhibits the Jefferson River at Sappington Bridge close to Cardwell, Mont. A uncommon river otter assault alongside a close-by stretch of the river on Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2023, left three girls injured. (Morgan Jacobsen/Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks by way of AP)
The Related Press
BILLINGS, Mont. — A uncommon assault by a river otter in southern Montana injured three girls floating on internal tubes and inflicted wounds critical sufficient that one sufferer needed to be airlifted to a hospital, authorities mentioned Thursday.
The assault occurred close to the city of Cardwell on a distant stretch of the Jefferson River, a tributary of the Missouri River that is fashionable with anglers and leisure floaters.
Not less than one otter swam as much as the grownup girls at about 8:15 p.m. Wednesday and attacked them, mentioned Morgan Jacobsen with Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks. The ladies had been in a position to get to shore, the place certainly one of them referred to as 911, he mentioned.
One girl’s wounds, on her face and arms, had been so extreme that the helicopter was used to fly her out, Jefferson County Undersheriff James Everett mentioned. Her situation Thursday was unknown. The others had accidents to their arms.
“It is simply not one thing you run into fairly often,” Everett mentioned. “Bears do it, moose too and ocasionaly a deer, however otters? That is not regular.”
Jacobsen mentioned one of many girls noticed two otters beforehand nevertheless it was unclear what number of had been concerned within the assault.
Northern river otters are members of the weasel household and might attain as much as 20 kilos (9 kilograms) — as heavy as a small canine — and as much as 47 inches lengthy (1.2 meters). They primarily eat fish.
They will can use their tooth and claws to chunk and scratch, Jacobsen mentioned.
“If people are attacked by an otter, our advisable response is to battle again, get away and get out of the water,” he mentioned.
Warning indicators had been posted at entry factors alongside the Jefferson River within the space of the assault.
No otters have been seen there since Wednesday and there might be no efforts to catch or take away any of the animals as a result of it is believed to have been a defensive assault, he mentioned.
Two years in the past a 12-year-old boy on an internal tube was attacked however not severely harm by an otter on Montana’s Large Gap River.
Final month in California, a sea otter gained widespread consideration for aggressively wrestling surfboards from surfers off the coast of Santa Cruz.
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