You've heard of coyotes, bears and cougars coming into town looking for a meal, but a river otter?
That's right yesterday, a river otter visited the Association of Washington Business (AWB) ponds and feasted on our collection of goldfish and Koi. Today, the otter returned to the ponds and polished off the remaining survivors who managed to hide from the initial assault.
Now, AWB is not exactly out in the country. Our headquarters building with its two small ponds is 2 blocks east of the state capitol building and 2 blocks west of I-5. So we are along the busy main access street to the capitol and downtown Olympia. We are surrounded by homes and buildings. That didn't seem to bother our venturesome friend.
The only thing we can figure out is there is a watershed park just east of I-5 which is natural and full of springs and it is not too far from Capitol Lake and the Deschutes River which feeds the Lake.
So when things settle down, we will restock the AWB ponds and re-establish our fishery with the nickel goldfish from the pet store.
The moral of the story is if you have a fish pond, the predators will eventually come.
Don C. Brunell (DonB@awb.org)
