It's a River Otter…

Or Is It?

So, the group is sitting in a restaurant and Joan and one of the other women walk over to look at out the water. Joan spies an animal “frolicking″ in the bay and calls the rest of the group over. The animal is swimming, diving under water, rolling on its back. Its actions certainly look like that of an otter.

River Otter??? No, it's a cat!, Bay of Pigs, Zapata Peninsula, Cuba

It is pretty far away, so no one is getting a great look at it. But hundreds (literally hundreds) of pictures are taken.

River Otter??? No, it's a cat!, Bay of Pigs, Zapata Peninsula, Cuba

The animal is swimming, diving under water, rolling on its back. Its actions certainly look like that of an otter.

River Otter??? No, it's a cat!, Bay of Pigs, Zapata Peninsula, Cuba

The guides are ecstatic! Not only is there no previous record of an otter in Cuba, there are no longer any naturally occurring predators on any of the Caribbean islands. What a puzzle!

But after we got home, we were told that, based on photos taken with a super long lens, the animal was actually a cat.

Cat
Bay of Pigs, Matanzas, Cuba
December 7, 2014

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