{"id":412517,"date":"2026-01-17T07:53:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T07:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/412517\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T07:53:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T07:53:09","slug":"river-otters-spotted-in-westmoreland-pond-eating-stocked-fish-local","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/412517\/","title":{"rendered":"River Otters Spotted in Westmoreland Pond Eating Stocked Fish | Local"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAQAAAAe\/WZNAAAAEElEQVR42mM8U88ABowYDABAxQPltt5zqAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==\" alt=\"River Otters Spotted in Westmoreland Pond Eating Stocked Fish\" class=\"img-responsive lazyload full blur\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" data- data-\/><\/p>\n<p>             <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/696aa1e2abc34.image.jpg\" alt=\"\" aria-hidden=\"true\" loading=\"lazy\" height=\"113\" width=\"200\"\/><\/p>\n<p>WESTMORELAND, N.Y. &#8212; A pair of river otters made a surprise appearance in a Westmoreland pond.<\/p>\n<p>Carla Bull said the duo showed up Wednesday afternoon at her property on Stop 7 Road.<\/p>\n<p>Bull enjoyed seeing the animals, but her husband was not thrilled about the otters eating the fish he has stocked in the pond.<\/p>\n<p>Bull took video of the otters as they ate the fish.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>According to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, otters are part of the weasel family.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Otters spend most of their time in the water, so look in, or along the shores of ponds, lakes, rivers and the ocean,&#8221; the DEC stated on its website.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The animals are also active\u00a0year-round.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The DEC said that a fun fact about them is that &#8220;otters groom their fur with a &#8216;towel&#8217; made of moss or grass.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The DEC has a <a href=\"https:\/\/dec.ny.gov\/nature\/animals-fish-plants\/biodiversity-species-conservation\/citizen-science\/furbearer-sighting-surveys\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Furbearer Sighting Form<\/a>, where residents can report spottings of animals like river otters, bobcat and gray fox.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<p>A pair of river otters made a surprise appearance in a Westmoreland pond.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n                    &#13;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WESTMORELAND, N.Y. &#8212; A pair of river otters made a surprise appearance in a Westmoreland pond. Carla Bull&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[30564,96009,79,197914,111627,201],"class_list":["post-412517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-otter","tag-river-otter","tag-science","tag-stop-7-road","tag-westmoreland","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}