The otters are captured in the Adirondack and Catskill mountains by specially licensed trappers who work with DEC on the reintroduction program. Veterinary students and wildlife medicine technicians record the animals' vital statistics, day by day, and make certain the otters are healthy enough to release back to the wild. The otters also receive microchip identification devices, implanted beneath their fur, and some get miniature radio transmitters so that their whereabouts can be monitored after the release. Also, we don't want to deplete existing populations. At the top of their aquatic food chain, river otters eat frogs and tadpoles, crayfish and their favorite meal, trout.
Otters usually consume fish tail-first, probably to disable their prey from swimming.
For the Cornell students, the River Otter Project is a good opportunity to work with a species that is rarely seen in veterinary practices, said Kollias, who is the Jay Hyman Chair in Wildlife Medicine at the college.