INVERNESS, Fla.—Living at the water’s edge changes your life forever. It spoils you for life elsewhere, because you live with the water creatures—the birds and frogs, the snakes, the alligators, and the otters.

Early Friday morning, about 9 a.m., while making my morning inspection tour around the house and lakeshore, I fed the squirrels, filled the bird feeder, and was about to water a batch of recently planted azaleas. As I bent to pick up the garden hose, I was startled to see a brown ball of fur lying on the concrete, up close to the house. I stared and saw the tiny body lift and fall. It was breathing, alive, but asleep or near death I guessed.

With gloves on, I bent and prodded the tiny creature. Its response was weak. It uncoiled its furry body and tried to crawl away from my probing fingers, and when it did, it revealed its identity for the first time—webbed feet, long whiskers, silver fur under its tiny chin, and a stocky tail that tapered down to a point. There was no doubt, it was an otter, a northern river otter to be exact, and it couldn’t be more than six or seven weeks old. And here it was, exhausted and alone and struggling to find warmth and shelter next to the house.

The fur ball make a few faint noises when I bent to inspect it. It finally opened its tiny eyes, and when it saw me, it opened its mouth, showing its little needle-teeth and hissed. It was bold, but it wasn’t very convincing coming from such a small critter. So I dashed inside and grabbed a plastic bin, tossed an old pair of Chicago Bear sweatpants into it and ran back outside, fearing the errant baby might crawl into the forest of ferns near the house and disappear.

It hadn’t moved more than a few inches, and when I picked it up, it was too weak to complain, although it did show its teeth and make a very shaky attempt at hissing. It nuzzled into the old sweats and burrowed into them, hiding its otter face under the blue and orange of the Midway Monsters. Once its head was beneath the dark blue cotton, it stopped squirming and lay still, convinced it was hidden from view and safe from the huge two-legged monster.

I sat the otter-bin atop the boat and ran inside once again to grab the phone. I dialed the Florida Game & Fish Commission office. I have a baby otter here, lost or abandoned. What to do?

The Game & Fish employee was less than interested and gave me a couple of phone numbers of animal rehabilitators to call. Nobody home at those numbers. Wildlife officials in Florida don’t get as excited as they do in Indiana when an otter is in trouble, because there are a lot of them I guess.

My neighbor is a medical doctor, Dr. Jim Fuller. His wife, Suzanne, had told me of seeing an adult otter in their yard, and that it had a den along the seawall next to the lake. I had seen this animal a couple of times myself, and had seen evidence of its presence where it had dug up my freshly planted azaleas, probably looking for the source of a fishy smell that comes from the fertilizer I applied when I planted them.

Since the little otter was so weak, I asked the doc down to have a look. In about 30 minutes the otter was in his hands while a shanghaied "otter nurse" employee was trying to get an eye dropper filled with milk into its mouth. Not mother’s milk, but our tiny guest eventually began to gulp some. It stopped shaking and began feeling more comfortable in human hands but was still very weak.

When the animal rehab woman rang the doorbell, our lost otter guest had rooted back under the sweat pants with great effort.

Kelli Wright Bramlett, Nature Coast Wildlife Control, (humane wildlife manager and wildlife rehabilitator) who has devoted her life to helping lost and wounded animals, could find no wounds, no broken bones. She stashed the tiny female in a blanket-lined travel box and joined us outside to inspect the otters’ den.

There were obvious signs of activity around the den entrance, so she crumpled a newspaper and blocked the hole.

"This way, we can tell if there is any activity, because the mother will move the paper going in and out of the den," she explained. I blocked the entrance to another den entrance, at the base of a palm tree close to my house.

We had a mystery on our hands and began tossing out possibilities. Maybe the little one had been too adventurous and crawled from the den to inspect the outside world. Not likely. She couldn’t even stand on her legs. Maybe the mother was moving her pups to another den, closer to the lake. The water line has receded over 100 yards from her den as the result of Florida’s on-going, three-year drought. There were a few other possibilities, however, none of them pleasant.

"My mentor told me on the phone that in a case like this, where the mother is around, that something was wrong. I know that sometimes a mother will carry out a pup, sometimes a male, if it is causing trouble or biting her other pups," explained Bramlett.

Despite the little mammal’s obvious weakened condition, our hopes were high. Maybe, just maybe, we could put the lost baby back in the den. Maybe her mother would take her back. Maybe life for this unfortunate lost otter might turn out to be the joy that otter life is. I envisioned her sliding down the mud banks with her litter mates, floating on her back.

Sometimes things turn out well. Sometimes they don’t.

When I called Kelli Saturday morning, a brief silence followed before she spoke.

"I believe that she died warm and comfortable. That was my job. I think something internal was wrong. Her mother knew it and took her out of the den…nature takes its course. I sat and sat with her and watched her. She should have been on her feet.

"It can happen with every animal we get. When we have a successful release, it’s beautiful. But there are many that don’t make it. I loved her," said the young mother of three children, her voice again halting. "In the short amount of time I had her…it makes it a little bit easier. I’ve had them stay healthy for weeks and then die…that’s worse. But she was a very special little baby."