The Otters of Chelsey Lawrence

Chelsey Lawrence is the Graduate student working on her Masters under the Biologist, Dr. Ted Miller. She has worked under Dr. Miller for a year, as well as under Dr. Luise Hermanutz for her honours. Chelsey's project is on the anthropogenic affects on the Northern River Otter, specifically the otter population on the island. She looks to see how different human affected regions affect the behaviour, movements, and habits of the otters. 



Specifically, she performs her work with motion sensor cameras. Chelsey has placed 36 cameras (18 in human developed regions such as logging camps, and 18 with no human development, all near the shoreline) in different latrines around Newfoundland. Latrines are places that the otters use as a meeting place, or a common area where multiple otters interact. A latrine can be identified by the otter tracks around the region, an area near the shoreline, and having a large circle of dirt that all the grass has been trampled, the main part of the latrine, and occasionally a few dens on the side. Otters have been observed playing, sleeping, and cleaning one another in the latrine.  A latrine, if it is near a body of salt water, will usually have a fresh water pond of stream, where the otters use to take baths to remove the slat from their fur from the salt water (this is due to if the salt from the sea clings to the otter for so long, their fur loses its