What is the scientific name associated with the small carnivorous mammal and member of the mustelid family that was sought after during the California Fur Rush?
California Fur Rush Before the 1849 California Gold Rush, American, English and Russian fur hunters were drawn to Spanish (and then Mexican) California in a California Fur Rush, to exploit its enormous fur resources. Before 1825, these Europeans were drawn to the northern and central California coast to harvest prodigious quantities of southern sea otter ("Enhydra lutris nereis") and fur seals ("Callorhinus ursinus"), and then to the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento – San Joaquin River Delta to harvest beaver ("Castor canadensis"), river otter ("Lontra canadensis"), marten, fisher, mink, gray fox ("Urocyon cinereoargenteus"), weasel, and harbor seal. It was California's early fur trade, more than any other single factor, that opened up the West, and the San Francisco Bay Area in particular, to world trade.
North American river otter The North American river otter ("Lontra canadensis"), also known as the northern river otter or the common otter, is a semiaquatic mammal endemic to the North American continent found in and along its waterways and coasts. An adult river otter can weigh between 5.0 and . The river otter is protected and insulated by a thick, water-repellent coat of fur.