TEXAS RIVER OTTERS: Thanks to listeners like you, 
biologists know more about the Texas River Otter's 
range ... details ahead on Passport to Texas.

This is Passport to Texas 

A few months ago we aired a program about Texas river 
otters with biologist Gary Calkins. At the time, he told us 
few people ever get to see otters ... but then ... 

:06 -- With the awareness now from the program, people are 
talking about it. And so, we're getting to hear what they're 
seeing. 
 
What you're seeing and telling us about, are river otters ... 
a lot of them it seems ... and some in unexpected places.

:10 -- This has been awesome. We found out about otters a lot 
further west and further north than we really had an idea that 
there were good populations. So it's been really interesting. 

Calkins says having extra sets of eyes looking for otters 
has been a boon to his research. 
 
:10 -- I was very surprised, but also pretty psyched. It was really 
neat to start getting some feedback from the radio program on 
something that we had been trying to do other ways and hadn't 
been able to get there.

Researchers are interested in Texas river otters for more 
than their playful personalities.

:10 -- They're kind of an indicator species of how healthy our 
environment is. So, by trying to get a handle on how their 
population's doing, it kind of tells us how our environment is 
doing overall.

If you spot an otter ... on land or water ... tell us about it 
 ... you know you ought to ... at passporttotexas.org. :)

The Wildlife restoration program supports our series ... For 
Texas Parks and Wildlife ... I'm Cecilia Nasti. 



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