Three Salt River Project crew members and Arizona Game and Fish Department staff saved a baby otter from the Arizona Canal last month. The cute critter was “dehydrated, starving and flea-infested” when crew members, Craig Boggs, Dave Massie and Joshua Shill, rescued him from the canal.
According to Salt River Project (SRP) Connect, the three men “were working on a road by the Arizona Canal last month north of Mesa when they noticed a 4-week-old otter struggling to get out of the drying canal. The otter was too small to use the steps that horses and other animals use to get out of the canal if they fall in, so the crew stepped in.”
The crew members turned the tiny animal over to Arizona Game and Fish Department staff, which “cared for the otter and fed it a trout mash mixed with kitten’s milk.”
SRP reported that an otter family “is said to live in the forebay at Granite Reef Diversion Dam, which could be where this little guy started its harrowing journey.”
According to Jonathan DuHamel’s article, River Otters In Arizona, “Historically, the Arizona river otter occurred along the Colorado and Gila Rivers and their tributaries. In 1981-1983, a Louisiana subspecies was introduced into the Verde River in central Arizona.”