In the mid 1970’s, a popular TV sitcom was Welcome Back Kotter.
The show focused on Gabe Kotter, a teacher who returned to his high school alma that he graduated from ten years previously.
Kotter’s assigned class included an assortment of remedial students who were almost universally viewed as a lost cause.
As the show’s storyline ran over four years, Kotter achieved measurable and significant success with his students through patience and encouragement.
His guiding principle was, never give up on seemingly hopeless causes and always expect the unexpected.
Those guiding principles and messages are appropriate for another seemingly hopeless cause and for an unexpected success story in the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed.
That watershed includes the Susquehanna, Potomac, Patuxent, Choptank, Nanticoke, Chester, and Patapsco rivers in Maryland.
That story is the unexpected and successful return of river otters in that watershed.
The July 28, 2026, edition of the Chesapeake Bay Journal included an article by Karl Blankenship with the title: River otters are making a comeback – and in surprising places around the Chesapeake Bay
Blankenship wrote: “Four decades ago, populations of the river otter, a playful, whiskered member of the weasel family, were so depleted that most states in the Chesapeake Bay region considered them endangered. Today, the species known for its fondness of clean water is turning up throughout the Bay watershed, including seemingly unlikely places.”
One of those seemingly unlikely places is Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.
Three years ago, the National Aquarium started to build a floating wetland in the harbor.
There was great uncertainty about what might live on it, if anything at all.
They soon had an answer.
Even before the floating wetland was completed, Aquarium staff noticed regular visits to it on surveillance cameras in the wetland. The cameras recorded a group of river otters who are largely nocturnal animals by nature, living in the floating wetlands.
Aquarium staff member Taylor Long told the Bay Journal, “It’s just wild how quickly they showed up. We’re still very surprised about it.”
More importantly, the otters in the wetlands apparently were eating fish in the harbor with no ill effects.
Victoria Dunch, resilience research manager with the Elizabeth River Project in Virginia said in the Bay Journal article, “You can’t have otters in a body of water unless there’s a healthy enough ecosystem to support them.”
Dr. Tom Serfass is a professor and river otter expert at Frostburg State University. At one time he spearheaded river otter reintroduction efforts in Pennsylvania where they had all but vanished. Today river otters are found throughout Pennsylvania, with stable populations reported across their range.
In the Bay Journal article, Serfass observed, “We have a major conservation success story in terms of restoring a predatory animal that had declined significantly. It’s a good example that some of the water quality regulations have worked. It also demonstrates the otter is a bit more tolerant if we give it a little protection.”
More good news about river otters in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
In Virginia, the Elizabeth River Project’s Victoria Bunch told the Bay Journal, “The Elizabeth River, which runs between Norfolk and Portsmouth, was once considered nearly ‘dead’ because of pollution. Scientists didn’t even bother to conduct fish surveys there. But that started to change as recovery efforts took hold — the Elizabeth River Project now gives the river a “C” on its report card. And the otters are weighing in, too. People have been telling us about their otter sightings for probably well over a decade.”
Welcome back otter.
May you continue to thrive in the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed.