iN PHOTOS: Kamloops river otter caught on camera having carp for lunch

A Kamloops wildlife photographer snapped some photos of a river otter busy pulling a carp out of the Thompson River and dining on his catch.

It was the first river otter she'd seen outside of a zoo.

“I was excited as heck and wasn’t leaving there until he was,” she said. “He pulled the fish up by the nose and dragged it up onto the rocks. He was sitting on it and lying on it.”

She said the otter was roughly three feet long and 15 pounds with a long tail that “looked hairless.”

“He swam over to a beaver lodge and was sitting on the lodge when a beaver came out and you heard this awful scream, then he took off and went into one of the holes in the river bank.”

READ MORE: Everything you need to know about river otters in the Thompson-Okanagan

River otters can be found around bodies of water all over the province and are known to be mischievous.

They can grow to over a metre in length and are agile and adept swimmers.

The otters eat fish, birds and mammals, and their favourite catches are slow moving bottom fish.

They stay active during the winter and are able to keep warm with their incredibly dense coats.

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