Our Wild Places

Northern California Habitats

Northern California including Del Norte, Humboldt, Mendocino, Siskiyou, and Trinity counties includes coastal bays, estuaries, lagoons, marshes, ponds, lakes, reservoirs, rivers, streams, and associated inland watersheds – all of which are suitable habitat for river otters and a wealth of other aquatic creatures. Humboldt Bay is roughly the center of the North Coast Otters study area.

River Otters in this region have been documented from sea level in the west to 2100 m along North Coast Mountain Ranges in the east (Black 2009). Our North Coast Otters primary study area where citizen science volunteers recorded River Otter observations includes Humboldt, Del Norte, and adjacent counties from 2000–2020. Sister citizen science projects have been launched to the south including the San Francisco Bay area and Sacramento Valley.

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