Predators I Have Known (25 page)

Well, if I had to choose one . . .

It is a predator, though at first glance you might not think of it as such. If you have never been fortunate enough to come across an otter in person, you’ve certainly seen them on television. Otters have served as the stars of innumerable nature documentaries. Among all the denizens of the animal kingdom, few possess such natural magnetism or seem to have as much actual
fun
as the otter; rocketing effortlessly through the water, tobogganing headfirst down snowbanks, playing frenetic king-of-the-mountain atop slick rocks or convenient logs. Through no design of their own, otters fit comfortably into that non-Linnaean but very real and entirely human-created genus known as
Cute
. Not only are they naturally playful, they are furry, inoffensively small, bewhiskered, family-oriented, and they squeak charmingly. Note that the actual differences from rats, about which most people feel quite differently, are comparatively minor.

As I have already pointed out, we are an incorrigibly visual species.

There is one kind of otter, however, that while possessing in full all of the aforementioned Lutrinaean characteristics can be something less than playful and react in a manner other than cute. It is my favorite predator as well as my favorite animal in the world.

Pteronura brasiliensis
, the giant otter of South America, can grow to more than six feet in length and attain a weight of nearly eighty pounds. Cross your prototypical cuddly river otter with a seal and you’ll get some idea of what this master of the Amazon basin looks like out of the water. The giant otter is the largest member of the weasel family. In Spanish, it is known as
el lobo de río
or “the river wolf.” An apt name for a predator that eats piranhas for breakfast, along with pretty much anything else it can catch. Every bit as agile in the water as its smaller cousins, it is able to consume much larger prey.

Excluding humans, the giant otter’s only real enemy is the caiman, particularly the black caiman. From its massive snout to its spiky dragon’s tail, this striking South American crocodilian can reach lengths of twenty feet. Individually, a giant otter is easy prey for the caiman. But a cooperative family group of otters cannot only drive off the armored giants, they have been known to kill smaller ones.

They have also been reputed, on rare occasions, to seriously injure humans who intrude on their territory.

Nearly wiped out by decades of uncontrolled hunting for their pelts, giant otters are now protected in many parts of the continent. Where their habitat has been left intact, they are making a slow but steady comeback from near extinction. Endangered but viable populations are reported from Guyana, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia. Despite their wide range they remain scarce and often difficult to see. Though I missed them in Guyana, I have been fortunate enough to encounter them while crossing the small lakes they favor in Peru, Ecuador, and Brazil. From the time I first learned of their existence, it became a dream of mine to interact with them in their natural surroundings. In other words, to go swimming with them.

Knowledgeable people to whom I confessed this longing told me in no uncertain terms that in their professional opinion this was a Really Bad Idea. Not unlike scratching a cheetah between its front legs.

“A family group will almost always include one or two cubs, or at least juveniles, and they’re highly protective of their young,” one zoologist explained to me when I broached the possibility.

I nodded understandingly. “So if I just happened to find myself in the water in their vicinity, what would they be likely to do?”

The specialist considered. “One of three things. They’ll swim away, in which case you’re wasting your time. They’ll hang around briefly to satisfy their curiosity, barking and spy-hopping (lifting themselves vertically out of the water to get a better view of their immediate surroundings), in which case you’ll get a nice photo-op. Or they’ll attack, in which case you are frankly putting your life at risk.”

I smiled wanly. “Maybe they’d just give me a warning nip to drive me out of the water.”

My friend stared hard me. “Maybe. Or maybe they’ll snap an arm, or bite off part of your hand. They eat bones, you know. If you’re not close to land or a boat and they take a couple of good chunks out of you, that’ll put a lot of blood in the water real fast. Which alters the environment in ways you don’t want it to be altered.”

I knew where he was heading. “Piranha,” I said. He nodded solemnly.

This florid conversational caveat was at the forefront of my thoughts as I left my motel room and made my way to the small dock. Located on the side of the two-lane Transpantaneira highway that runs from the Brazilian city of Cuiabá to its terminus at the town of Porto Joffre in the heart of the Brazilian Pantanal, the Best Western Mato Grosso (yes, there really is such a place) was the only real hotel in the vast swampy region. The size of France, the Pantanal is the world’s largest wetland. While most of it lies within Brazil, significant portions extend into Bolivia and Paraguay. A paradise for wildlife of all kinds, it is under threat from expanding agricultural development and from proposals to alter the main river system into which it drains.

The portion of the Pixaim (“pee-zham”) River I was about to explore was human inhabited, but save for the occasional incursion by herds of cattle it had suffered relatively little degradation from commercial exploitation. White caimans lay like chevrons on both dusty brown banks, occasionally hauling themselves up onto the boat ramps to sun themselves. Jabirus, storks that can be as tall as people, wandered along the shore like so many hopeful undertakers, careful to stay just out of snapping range of the motionless but ever-watchful crocodilians. Southern caracaras marched up and down the dock area and the rest of the modest hotel grounds, looking for handouts.

These bold, handsome, chicken-size, land-loving predatory birds quickly lose their fear of humans and will allow you to approach quite close. While they will take live prey, they prefer carrion. They were also more than willing, I discovered, to sneak into the hotel’s restaurant via its unscreened windows to scour unguarded plates of everything from bacon scraps to scrambled eggs and toast. Striding purposefully about the grounds as if they own the place, they remind anyone with an interest in paleontology of the great carnivorous flightless birds such as
Phororhacos
and
Diatryma
that used to roam these very same savannas not so many millennia ago.

Making inquiries soon after our arrival, my friend and I had been told that one or two families of giant otters had recently been spotted upriver. Conditions for a search were perfect. Though humid as always, the weather was unusually cool, in the seventies, and the forecast called for continued clear skies.

Heading up the Pixaim at first light the following morning, we encountered herds of capybaras almost immediately after setting out. Groups of the world’s largest rodent grudgingly made way for our small aluminum skiff. A South American native that is most assuredly
not
in danger of extinction, capybaras are as prolific as any of their much smaller relations. They are also reputed to be good eating, though I have somehow missed every opportunity to find out for myself. More than anything, they look and act like giant semiaquatic guinea pigs. Grunting as they alerted one other of our approach and shaking the water from their thick brown fur, they would scramble on their stubby legs up onto one bank or the other and cluster there to observe our passage.

The Pantanal is an Eden for birds, especially for water birds. In addition to both jabirus and wood storks, as we continued upriver we recorded brown ibises, egrets, and white-throated herons. Red-crested cardinals flashed crimson against blue sky while white-necked kingfishers seemed to occupy every other tree branch overhanging the narrow river. Turquoise-throated parrots took pride in periodically shattering the silence with their raucous cries. Overhead, a single black cacique performed aerial acrobatics in the course of its search for prey. Meanwhile clusters of six- to eight-foot-long white caimans sunned themselves on the banks. Watching them, I was mindful of the secret desire I had not revealed to my traveling companion Gil or to our boatman.

But where were the otters? Atypically “cool” weather or not, it was plenty hot in the open metal boat. We slugged down liters of water and promptly sweated it all back out.

Each bend in the river exposed one wonderful new sight after another. A rookery tree growing right at the water’s edge was home to more than a thousand snowy egrets. Several brilliantly dark blue hyacinth macaws, the largest member of the parrot family, soared past on three-foot wings, their presence belying their highly-endangered status throughout their range.

As I leaned to my left to peer over the side of the speeding boat, I reflected that there might be a dozen giant otters swimming along just beneath our keel and we would be utterly unaware of their presence. Like so many South American streams, the Pixaim was a blackwater river. Blackwater rivers are known as such because they are suffused with tannin, a substance produced by decaying vegetation that turns the water dark. The upper reaches of such rivers have the color of iced tea or Coca-Cola. In fact, tannins are present in strong tea, as well as in red wine and certain fruits. Cruising along a river rich in tannins, it is impossible to see more than a foot down into the depths.

Most of the morning had passed when eventually we turned yet another bend in the river and found ourselves confronted by a small boat. Its bow and stern were occupied by swarthy men wielding long cane poles. They might have been fishermen anywhere in the world save for their catch, which consisted of several exotic catfish and some two dozen piranhas. Piranhas, by the way, are quite tasty. Lots of small bones, and they taste a lot like trout. Best when pan-fried in butter, with salt and pepper to taste.

Had they seen any otters? After motoring upriver all morning, we were not sanguine. Raising an arm, the man in the bow pointed straight ahead and replied in Portuguese. Knowing only a few words of the local language, I turned questioningly to my guide and friend.

Gil was looking past me. “He says they’re right over there, in the reeds.”

I whirled. So as not to frighten away the fishermen’s quarry, our boatman had cut our engine when we had drawn near. We were drifting forward with the slight current—and in the right direction.

Searching for the lean, hydrodynamic shapes I had seen before in oxbow lakes in Peru, at first I could see nothing but murky water and thick green growth. Then, there it was: an almost doglike head atop a body covered in short golden-brown fur splotched with decorative white on the neck and chest. The watchful, intelligent eyes turned speculatively toward us as their owner bobbed vertically up and down in the water, spy-hopping. Diving and then reappearing, several otters were working their way through the reed bed where they were hunting. I spotted another, and then another. There were perhaps half a dozen—definitely a family group or part of a larger one.

We had been sitting in silence and delighting in their antics for maybe ten minutes when Gil, who had been chatting as softly as possible with the fishermen, whispered to me, “They say this group will take fish from them, but only if it’s really fresh. Will you buy a piranha?”

My expression must have been glowing. I replied positively.

By tossing bits of fresh-cut piranha into the water in our direction, the fishermen managed to coax several of the otters closer to our boat. One especially bold individual came right up alongside, rearing a foot or more of its muscular body up above the surface and chirping at us for all the world like a puppy begging for a biscuit. Once when it came particularly close, I cautiously reached out toward the giant otter. It drew back about a foot before lurching sharply up and forward again. Having over the years grown more than a little fond of my fingers, and needing all of them in order to type efficiently, I quickly pulled my hand back.

Below the surface in a tannin-obscured river, what would wriggling human fingers look like to a giant otter? Alien primate digits—or tempting small fish? I resolved to keep my fingers pressed together as much as possible while I was treading water. Because I had every intention of going in.

I turned to Gil. “Ask them if any of them have ever tried to go swimming with the otters.”

The response to my inquiry was immediate and succinct. “They say they don’t know of anybody who has tried it.”

I debated with myself. “What do they think of the idea?”

Once more, Gil queried the fishermen. I saw one of them smile and shrug. “They say you can do whatever you want.”

Not much help there. But nothing especially discouraging, either. Nothing along the lines of, “You can do whatever you want, but last week the otters ate my cousin’s sister.”

At such decisive moments in life, one often finds oneself not only isolated in intention, but in information. I had nothing to guide me; there was little in the available literature about the pros and cons of actually swimming with
Pteronura brasiliensis.
Now, confronted with the actual opportunity to do so, there was even less. I knew that people had interacted safely with giant otters they had rescued, and Cousteau
père
infamously had one aboard his ship during the filming of his Amazon adventure. But these were wild otters. They were not orphaned cubs that had been raised by surrogate human parents, and they were not injured animals that had been devotedly nursed back to health. They were entirely undomesticated.

But this family group had become at least partially habituated to a human presence due to being fed by the local fishermen. As long as they didn’t mistake any wavering parts of me for a choice bit of filleted piranha, I should be all right. At least, that was what I told myself. Repeatedly. My concern at the prospect of being bitten was not the damage that might result from a bite itself, but the possible reaction of other hungry dwellers in the depths of the Pixaim that might be attracted to any such inadvertent bloody offering.