Well, they've pretty much emptied the rivers.....

[Chris Plumb]

Residents complain of otters taking fish from garden ponds.....

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-61756567

[Tigger]

 

I wouldn't believe a word the bbc have to say about anything!

[Whitty]

I know of three people who have had their koi ponds emptied,one a large one with fish worth thousands,all ponds were netted,but otters are determined  and keep going till they find a chink in the defences....My friend works in cctv and in a Cotswold village(possibly Stow on the Wold)a customer sent him footage of an otter going past his front gate,returning some while after with a cat in its jaws....

Edited June 11, 2022 by Whitty

[Chris Plumb]

Remember seeing some video footage a while back of one taking a whole Greylag Goose.....found it!

 

[Tigger]

I don't believe the cat in it's jaws for a second, total bullshine....although, if otters did kill cats that would be a good thing, cats are ravaging the british wildlife on a massive scale, but thats ok it seems !

Regarding the goose, so what?....wildfowlers and rough shooters shoot thousands upon thousands every year, same with ducks etc etc. 

I have friends who have shot 200 plus in one day locally.

An otter kills one goose and it's a big deal, come on, lets get real .

 

Edited June 11, 2022 by Tigger

[chesters1]

Fish disappearance isn't otters there's other things going on in the background, if otters solely could destroy fish then they would have done it long ago in the 5-6 million years since they evolved. It's most probably pollution and bad river management l.ook at other countries where freshwaterl fish are harvested for food they are bountiful just like they used to be here.

Water companies dont clean water they just strain out the lumps and dump it back in they are the biggest polluters in the country Its easy to blame otters and even herons for disappearing fish but your just looking in the wrong places if either decimated fish they would have finished it and become extinct long before man started fishing.

I have seen swans kill ducks (especially chicks) its hardly exterminating a species if swans were a threat to the duck species there would be no ducks especially today where poxy swans seem to be everywhere and protected .The answer is the water itself not the animals that live in it (except for invasive species thats mans fault and thats rampant in river or land) otters were persecuted not because they did harm but rich landowners thought they did harm, probably the water bailffs were flogging his fish and blaming otters when it was noticed lol

 

 

Edited June 12, 2022 by chesters1

[Whitty]

Ian,this footage wasnt put in the public domain,it was sent via email by the customer to the erecter of his cctv system,who happened to be an angling friend of mine(I didn't even now what he did for a living)who upon chatting about the affect of otters on our local barbel rivers,as for predation in general,otters are capable of killing most moderate sized creatures,including giving a lot of dogs a run for their money(singly),that is why they used packs of otter hounds,otters choose to avoid confrontation more often than not,ive seen a swan flying with a mink hanging onto it's neck by it's jaws fifty feet from the ground at least over the H.Avon near Ringwood.Geese,ducks,moorhens,coots,rats,rabbits along with other species of water fowl and their young,if they were quick enough would all be fair game...

As for destroying a venue,yes they have and yes they sometimes only a part of the puzzle,but I know of two rivers that have been absolutely hammered by otters,which have had a surge in numbers and now have territories half the size of the accepted norm,I personally see otters regularly during daylight hours(with kitts often)summer and winter,which when you think up until the early nineties I had only seen otters once anywhere,I see them in towns and in rural places,normally,barbel are predated first,then perch,chub,bream,then roach,they don't totally deplete stocks,they jusy make it a waste of time fishing the venues and it is possible for venues to come back,but ten years or longer is needed with good water conditions and a following wind...

[Tigger]

Alan, seriously bud, all I did for years was go out hunting with dogs. Reason for a pack of otterhounds wasn't because they needed them to kill an otter, the same way hunting foxes with hounds isn't because they need more than one hound to kill a fox. One hound would smash a fox in seconds!  

They had a small group of otter hounds for "tracking" the otters, and then if they went to ground they had some terriers to go to ground.  They would either bolt the otter and have it with the hounds or they might have to dig down to the terriers who would have the otter held. Then the people would spade it or shoot it, or maybe just let the dogs kill it.

I was told by several people that the well know named barbel (the traveller?) Which some people claimed was killed by an otter had been caught numerous times in the few weeks previous to being found dead.  Obviously a big fish on it's last legs anyhow and so an easy target for a predator?  It stands to reason that any large specimen is going to be a good few years old and once they peak they start loosing weight etc. On top of the ageing thing, being caught regularly isn't going to help them stay fighting fit is it?  I was also told that there were no young up and coming fish, no tiddlers?  So once those old ones had met their end by predation or just being plain worn out there was nothing to replace them?

Apparently the river is still full of other species?

 

 

 

[Martin56]

Animals have learned to go & live where the easy pickings are!!

Seagulls to Rubbish dumps.

Foxes to the Towns & Cities.

Otters to the easier fishing - Commercial lakes & Garden ponds.

It's all OUR fault !!.

[Tigger]

31 minutes ago, Martin56 said:

Animals have learned to go & live where the easy pickings are!!

Seagulls to Rubbish dumps.

Foxes to the Towns & Cities.

Otters to the easier fishing - Commercial lakes & Garden ponds.

It's all OUR fault !!.

 

So it's your fault then !

I blame chester n'all