Nightly Visitor

[ORIF]

It's a river otter as Larry pointed out. To be sure put a coiled line on your swim step over night, if it's got sh:t on it in the morning, it's an otter.

Agree completely with the coiled rope test. A friend of mine commented a while back that an otter likes to leave his deposits on a coiled up dock line more than anything else.
He also said that he found an otter deposit on his small boat, and to place it where he found it, he swears it had to be holding on to the steering wheel...

Your critter looks smallish so may be a juvenile otter or a mink.

I've had both.

I videoed this otter on my dock last week

 

[john-o]

From the video, a little on the blurry side, it looked like a river rat. A neighbor of mine and I was tossing back some BBQ ribs and fries one night from his flybridge and this
thing looks exactly what we saw. His answer was a 22 Hornet. Not recommended in a
marina, but his private dock and log cabin in ME, miles and miles of open backwoods.

 

[Island Explorer]

It is not a river otter, which you can tell by looking at the tail. River otters tails are wide at the base, tapering down towards the tip.

I think John-o May be correct.

BTW, in the USA, endangered and threatened are legal terms of protection. River otters are in neither class. In Florida, there is no bag limit on river otters, hunted between Dec 1 and Mar 1 for the 19-20 season. I love watching the otters, except on my boat and electric. Don’t like rats.

 

[jjorgenson3]

Looks like a Martin

 

[Senojev]

Muskrat?

Several years ago on the Great Lakes, I noticed a disgusting smell at the aft end of my boat while it was in inside winter storage. Talking with some of the guys in the building, they believed it was a muskrat that crawled up the exhaust in the late Fall just before it was pulled. There was no sign of anything in the 6’ of 6”” exhaust hose aft of the muffler. Don’t worry they said come launch give it some good throttle and it will probably blast out. We had one boat sink at the dock when a muskrat chewed through a wire wound rubber exhaust hose. A few years earlier. Not wanting to be one of those, I called in a local sewer plumber and he borescoped the hose as far as the water lift and it was clear of any damage. True to their word, in the Spring, upon startup, the remains of one muskrat blasted out, followed by two more, and a few gallons of fermented muskrat soup. The odor could be smelt in the marina office 100 yards away. Interestingly, I checked with my insurance company (with a quality yacht policy), and they pointed out that vessel damage due to vermin was not covered. Needless to say, the exhaust flange was immediately screened.