Otters – Action at Last?

[Paul Boote]

NUBA, eh, John? Might offend some prospective members ("You're taking the wee-wee, mate") - [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuba_peoples"]Nuba peoples - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

 

[geoffmaynard]

Nope. I know everything there is to know about disingenuous and loaded replies, after over of a decade of them from individuals and cliques on the Internet. It's boiling down to this: we Anglers can't act like mardy, foot-stamping, tantrum-throwing "I'll thwceam and thwceam until I am thick" Violet Elizabeth Botts in a Just William story anymore.

Agreed. So when someone actually gets off his botty to actively do something constructive to aid angling then why not give them credit for that rather than just try to shoot the whole thing down before it has even started.
So far it sounds good. Perhaps it will amount to something or perhaps not - but if we don't try these things, nothing will be done.
Now, at this point you might say 'good!'. And cormorant lovers would do the same if this group were about cormorant predation. etc. It's the shotgun blasts we need to protect ourselves from, not selective individual pellets.

 

[Paul Boote]

Agreed. So when someone actually gets off his botty to actively do something constructive to aid angling then why not give them credit for that rather than just try to shoot the whole thing down before it has even started.

Sorry again, Geoff, but ill-conceived partisan nonsense like that of the new Defence outfit will only bring Angling down - the Otter Horror People are on the same path that the Foxy Folk were several years ago: likely to end up muttering about and not obeying "unenforcable laws". Speed limit / tax / riot, anyone?

 

[Tee-Cee]

Number of breeding Otters in our waterways at the present time?

Rate of production?

Ability to spread to areas where they are not yet found?

Number of freshwater fish consumed* to survive, per adult per day?


* Perhaps this should be the weight of fish consumed to survive as they don't eat all they kill?

Answers to the above might give some idea of what the actual problem is, and then we can make comparisons to other existing forms of predation....


As likely as not, some, or all, of the above posters have this information (on which they base argument) to hand BUT I don't, so whilst I don't particularly like the idea of Otters feeding on decent fish (carp or otherwise!) I don't have enough information to offer an opinion.......................................Am I the only one???

 

[richard bowler]

I can only speak form personal experience on the Gt Ouse and it's tributaries. My feeling is that the biggest danger to these rivers is the mis management by the EA. Has anyone seen any paperwork into the studies that was carried out proving that the modern day Gt Ouse was capable of supporting the re-introduced otter? I don't believe one was ever carried out. Common sense would show that the environment is not the same as when otters were naturally found on the Ouse. Milton Keynes was still a little village not the city it is today with all the pressures it puts onto the river through abstraction, effluent, run off from the massive network of roads all carrying salt in the winter, then we have intensive farming, infestation of the alien signal crayfish that stops the successful recruitment of fish by eating spawn and fry, the mink, the increased population of the inland cormorant. These are pressures common to most rivers in the UK I'd have thought.
In my opinion the otter was just the final straw on an already failing river, how can it be right that it's easier to catch a double figure barbel or 3lb perch than a bag of smaller fish.
I don't think it will ever be a fight we will win asking for a cull on otters, in fact I feel we'd be missing a trick if we did, we should instead be highlighting the constant miss management of our rivers and push to get the rivers of the UK back to a healthy and self sustaining environment, after all a healthy environment can support both predator and prey.
If anglers are finding similarities between the name of this new group and the EDL, think what a PR own goal that would be if the mainstream media picked that up combined with the call to cull otters.
All the best
Richard
- Home

 

[Fred Bonney]

“We’ve seen two of the finest barbel fisheries in history – Adams Mill and Sayers Meadow – destroyed and the upper Thames, Cherwell and Evenlode hae been devastated and now my beloved Kennet is beginning to suffer badly.” said Ian
“We also lost some of the very best river perch fishing on the upper Ouse system and I hope to be working with Mark from a specialist angling point of view.” He added."

Utter rubbish, old over fed fish in aquarium Adams Mill, and there are still big perch being caught in the Upper Ouse around Stoney Stratford. The Kennet is running dry.
Same old claptrap being spread by those without any proof, and with the sole idea of influencing the easily led amongst us.
Somebody did that before.
It hasn't worked already, it won't work again
If the fishery owner wants help go to your banker!
Mark my words a "fighting fund" will be next on the list.

The people you want to make war on are the water companies, there will be more support for that, than public attacks on a cute furry animal, which is only a minor part of the anglings problem!

 

[Peter Jacobs]

he Otter Horror People are on the same path that the Foxy Folk were several years ago

Maybe, but then there will be an estimated 250,000 fox hunters out today . . . . .

 

[geoffmaynard]

Sorry again, Geoff, but ill-conceived partisan nonsense like that of the new Defence outfit will only bring Angling down - the Otter Horror People are on the same path that the Foxy Folk were several years ago: likely to end up muttering about and not obeying "unenforcable laws". Speed limit / tax / riot, anyone?

You are rather cherry-picking my posts Paul. Please concentrate on my main point about single pellets and shotgun blasts and try picking holes in that.

Oh, and Happy Xmas everyone!

 

[iceman22]

Not sure if I'm right with this but dont they usually only eat certain parts of fish ?

 

[Simon K]

Sorry to be the odd man out here - I know we've been through it all before - but IMHO anyone who doesn't object to otters is a turkey voting for Christmas. I'm not a carp angler, I fish for everything, and that's what otters target... everything. There is a reason they were hunted down as vermin for so many years, the same reason as we hunted wolves!
On their own they can be likened to a single BB shot at angling: a small but significant problem, same as abstraction, cormorants, discharges, nitratres etc etc. But when we put all these threats together, it becomes a twin-barreled shotgun blast which could kill angling as we know it. We need to back these kind of initiatives the same as we would back anti-pollution lobbyists. Dismissing a group who are merely trying to save angling from predation threats is counter-productive. And likening them to neo-facist groups is not the way forward These are very probably guys just like you and I who love their fishing and just want to save it from what they (and I) see as a PC culture gone mad.

Geoff, you seem to raise the point that otters on their own are not the main problem (which I agree with), but simultaneously encourage the "kill them like the vermin they are" view that is as counter-productive to anglings needs as can be.

I've said this before and will repeat, otters are an IUCN Red-List endangered species. As such, any attempt to cry out for culling etc will not just be met by deaf ears (since it's illegal) but will actively turn any public support for angling and its current problems, against us. Period.

Any group which attempts to focus on otters as the main threat to fish and fisheries is doomed to fail (as Paul puts it, quite rightly) and, if anything is going to get the political ball rolling in the right direction it will be on basis of the Big stuff first (abstraction, chemicals etc) rather than voter-friendly otters.

Anyone who can't see that really needs to educate themselves a little more before providing input to debate.

My view is that if the waterways can be brought to a point where self-sustaining fish populations are in balance, the otters will balance themselves within this. It's a long-term view, but more politically viable than that being offered by groups like this.

 

[Paul Boote]

My word, press the right buttons (at which I am a little-acknowledged Master) and the ancien regime Usual Suspects are off, quoting strange statistics and running hard.

Still, I popped out very early to the river again today (with the weather being so mild and the rest of Britain struggling with hangovers or doing some life-affirming shopping). Another verminous barbel, which I clubbed and consigned to a bramble clump, naturally.

 

[geoffmaynard]

Geoff, you seem to raise the point that otters on their own are not the main problem (which I agree with), but simultaneously encourage the "kill them like the vermin they are" view that is as counter-productive to anglings needs as can be.

My point is also everyone else's point! There are a dozen different threats to angling. We must oppose all of them, head on, not just those which are easy-wins like pollution. That includes otters!

We cannot continue to ignore the facts that these creatures have done some extreme damage in the past; this damage will continue and will worsen year on year - yet for political reasons our ATr champions cannot include them in their bomb-sights. This thread clearly shows why, when so many otherwise concerned anglers don't want to put their heads above the parapets. We can't really blame the ATr for ducking the issue when so many of its own members would object to otter controls.

So when we get people with the cojones to actually attempt to do something to PROTECT our fishing, people who have nothing to lose by taking on this very difficult target, fluffy little tarka, I think that if you can't can't support them, you shouldn't condemn them. They are going to attempt the dirty work that our moral-high-ground ATr are unable to pursue. I hope so anyway.

To make my point clearer - if the subject predators under discussion were cormorants and not otters, this thread would almost certainly not exist - except for the odd birder who would be defending them.

 

[Paul Boote]

Sorry once more, Geoff, but people the world over now have become "fluffy" - they'll tolerate others of their own kind sticking one on others of their own kind (in the workplace, business, on the Internet etc...), but take strong exception to people bullying animals, particularly those who do it for purely selfish reasons or for fun. Ignore as many laws as we like, moan and whine about "PC gone mad" (citing "In my day, we were flogged for not raising our caps to the vicar..." or somesuch), but we can't change things. All this Otter Menace stuff is largely promoted by Little Englanders living in a rose-tinted imaginary past, not by experienced, aware Anglers (as opposed to mere results-driven Hookers) who really do know something about the ways of the wild.

 

[Simon K]

Sorry once more, Geoff, but people the world over now have become "fluffy" - they'll tolerate others of their own kind sticking one on others of their own kind (in the workplace, business, on the Internet etc...), but take strong exception to people bullying animals, particularly those who do it for purely selfish reasons or for fun. Ignore as many laws as we like, moan and whine about "PC gone mad" (citing "In my day, we were flogged for not raising our caps to the vicar..." or somesuch), but we can't change things. All this Otter Menace stuff is largely promoted by Little Englanders living in a rose-tinted imaginary past, not by experienced, aware Anglers (as opposed to mere results-driven Hookers) who really do know something about the ways of the wild.

What he said.

And it's got nothing to do with protecting our declining fishing, everything to do righting the ills that have led to its decline. Otters are WAY down the list on that one.

 

[geoffmaynard]

And it's got nothing to do with protecting our declining fishing, everything to do righting the ills that have led to its decline. Otters are WAY down the list on that one.

I agree - but that does not negate my points as this thread concerns otter predation. Start one on pollution or abstraction and I'll attack that too.

---------- Post added at 14:57 ---------- Previous post was at 14:55 ----------

All this Otter Menace stuff is largely promoted by Little Englanders living in a rose-tinted imaginary past, not by experienced, aware Anglers (as opposed to mere results-driven Hookers) who really do know something about the ways of the wild.

I don't think so Paul. I use historical context in this piece (in case you are not looking at the other thread):
http://www.fishingmagic.com/feature...apex-predators-and-the-balance-of-nature.html

 

[Kevan Farmer]

Crikey these splinters are hurting my backside on this one

I love otters, Geoff knows this already At the same time I do see a major problem that can only grow over the next few years. That problem, however, will not only be to our fish be they coarse or game but to the otters themselves. The pillocks that have released otters into many waterways have simply not checked for proper sustainability. They have made sure the waterway is clean enough, great, but they have not checked that the food source is there.

The otter's preferred food is the freshwater eel. The wonderful water authorities in their infinite wisdom gave out licenses for eel nets like sweets to children; that's not mentioning the illegal netting that went on (still does). Over the last couple of decades the eel population of our waterways has plummeted thus removing most of the food supply for otters. These creatures need to eat. What do they do? The same as us, find an easy source of food.

I think, rather than demonise otters which is guaranteed to make anglers look bad in the eyes of the public, turn the tables. Make sure the public knows that otters are being released into areas that cannot sustain them and they will suffer from malnutrition due to lack of food. All those cuddly little baby otters dying in the holt.

How about some of the fisheries that have suffered losses suing the organisations that are releasing otters into their area? The fish in a pool are legal possessions of either the club controlling the water or the people otherwise running the fishery.

 

[Lord Paul of Sheffield]

Simple - just shoot the odd otter on the quiet when no one is around and make sure you take the body home so no one can find it

Do the same with any swans you find with a bit of line wrapped round them, this way the public stays unaware

Also works if a canoeist is on his own - and the odd stray dog or child

 

[iceman22]

While I understand the over of fishing of eels has had an effect on the population however I have heard 2 things , one that the saragaso is full of eels not returning here the other is that there may be a parasite problem , what the cuddly otter lovers aint told anyone is when they cant find fish they will eat anything , including the protected water vole , any water fowl they can get hold of and even small children ( only joking they only give children a nasty nip )

 

[MarkTheSpark]

The pillocks that have released otters into many waterways have simply not checked for proper sustainability..... They have made sure the waterway is clean enough, great, but they have not checked that the food source is there.

How about some of the fisheries that have suffered losses suing the organisations that are releasing otters into their area? The fish in a pool are legal possessions of either the club controlling the water or the people otherwise running the fishery.

Kevan. Let's get this absolutely straight. The re-establishment of otter populations is history. The otters we are seeing now are re-populating rivers entirely by themselves. Nobody is currently releasing otters.

And let the otter hounds answer this one, simple question? Is it likely that the environmental agencies will - having spent 20 years trying to bring otters back - allow people to shoot them? Well? The answer is no.

So I'm afraid that this discussion is a bit like Stan in Life of Brian announcing that he'd changed his name to Loretta because he wanted to have babies. What's the effin point? Stan didn't have a womb, and we haven't got an earthly of suggesting that fish which nobody but us ever sees are more important than Tarka. So do something more constructive with your time.

 

[chub_on_the_block]

So I'm afraid that this discussion is a bit like Stan in Life of Brian announcing that he'd changed his name to Loretta because he wanted to have babies. What's the effin point? Stan didn't have a womb, and we haven't got an earthly of suggesting that fish which nobody but us ever sees are more important than Tarka. So do something more constructive with your time.

But brothers, we should still fight for the right to discuss the culling of otters or other large piscivorous mammals for the sake of the sacred carp and barbel