The case for culling Otters

[Paul Boote]

Ever occurred to a few of you chaps that those who take against predators "playing" with their prey are usually the very people who talk and make much of "sport", "the fight", "the stalk" and "the chase". Appears that real, wild or feral, non-paying ("freeloading" is a word I have heard used many a time by affluent sporting sorts, a few Gamefishers among them) predators are to be discouraged from having fun at all costs, as it is us, the fully paid-up Sports, who should be having it all.

Gross hypocrisy, at the very least.

 

[sam vimes]

Ever occurred to a few of you chaps that those who take against predators "playing" with their prey are usually the very people who talk and make much of "sport", "the fight", "the stalk" and "the chase". Appears that real, wild or feral, non-paying ("freeloading" is a word I have heard used many a time by affluent sporting sorts, a few Gamefishers among them) predators are to be discouraged from having fun at all costs, as it is us, the fully paid-up Sports, who should be having it all.

Gross hypocrisy, at the very least.

Not really, advocating that humans do anything about the "competition", that certainly would be hypocritical. What I'm no fan of is the very human guilt trip thing of branding "sport", doing something for little more than fun, as being entirely human and all other animals killing only for food. It's simply not true, but there's nothing hypocritical in pointing it out.

 

[mick b]

I witnessed a young Fox kill nearly twenty pheasant poults in as many minutes, flushing each one from the stubble, jumping into the air to catch and kill it, then repeating it all over again.
The animal seemed to be practicing its hunting skill, not after something to eat.
I don't know how many it would have killed if a hollownose hadn't stopped it.

Cats, Orcas, Foxes yes I've seen them practise their hunting skills on TV or for real, Otters no, however I would be interested in reading a witness account as long as it wasn't from an angler.
........

I've asked this several times before; has anyone ever witnessed firsthand or know of someone who has witnessed, Otters being released?

Todate I've not had a single reply.

?????????

.

---------- Post added at 05:01 ---------- Previous post was at 04:52 ----------

Are you suggesting that animals may actually hunt for sport Paul........mmmm?

I've enjoyed hunting in all its forms for most of my life, but nothing, but nothing beats hunting a man!

 

[Paul Boote]

[/COLOR]Are you suggesting that animals may actually hunt for sport Paul........mmmm?

I've enjoyed hunting in all its forms for most of my life, but nothing, but nothing beats hunting a man!

What as in "What shall I do today? I think I'll go out and torment a Field mouse..."

Nice puma here, practicing its hunting with a piece of wind-blown grass - BBC Two - The Dark: Nature's Nighttime World, Patagonian Mountains, Deadly play


Men? Shades of the classic "The Thirty-Nine Steps" and "Rogue Male" thrillers. I have hunted a man on Night Operations over Surrey heathland several times as a teenager in a school Army Corps: I got my men.

They never once got me, however, when it was my turn to be the prey, on one occasion I got back several miles and ambushed the HQ!


PS - Pity that puma film link appears no longer to be working. I've got the clip on a drive here; it's great: bored puma lying around in the dark ... Hmmm, what shall I do...? ... goes after a passing ball of dead grass and catches and lets it go repeatedly.

 

[bennygesserit]

this is worth a read http://www.otter.org/documents/IOSF%20Otters%20and%20Fisheries%20Conference%202012%20Edinburgh.pdf

It implies that otters will kill larger prey and leave them while training their cubs to kill , most mamalian predators - lions , wild dogs etc do this.

An alternative view is that they just like to eat the Gills.

I totally believe the introductions have stopped except where people are finding orphaned or injured animals and returning them to the wild after caring for them, as far as I can tell mostly these animals do not do well.

The real introductions , as far as I can tell , stopped in the 90's and only consisted of 100 pairs anyway. Cleaner water and the lack of the pesticide which made otters and Buzzards ( I think ) sterile have accounted for most of the increase.

Though it would be a PR disaster I have kind of come around to the otter cull way of thinking , except that otter numbers are difficult to monitor ( the spraint method being unreliable ) I do wonder how many were hunted using hounds and guns in the 40's for instance.

I do totally believe that an otter population will stabilise without wiping out a natural ( river ) population but no one had provided any figures for what the fish biomass would look like in that "balanced" situation. Of course its not a closed system either.

 

[richiekelly]

I am correct.
The Otter kills its prey and eats the part it requires to satisfy it requirements, humans also do the same, but a shark will eat everything.
The fact that an Otter likes freshly killed food rather than old or rotting is not exclusive to Otters.

It is a scientific fact that Otter populations were NOT recovering 'quite nicely' (whatever that is meant to mean) on their own, there were small isolated groups but these were small and a recovery through the natural process was impossible.

You say that Ecology would have limited the natural spread of Otters to within the confines of what it can stand.
Well if that is the case then we can expect Otters to die out in those areas where the Ecology cannot support their presence, and you will have nothing to worry about

The situation is not false, unlike fisheries so overstocked that if anglers stopped fishing them the fish would die of starvation.

.

Wrong AGAIN...................

 

[cg74]

1, I am correct.
The Otter kills its prey and eats the part it requires to satisfy it requirements, humans also do the same, but a shark will eat everything.
The fact that an Otter likes freshly killed food rather than old or rotting is not exclusive to Otters.

2, It is a scientific fact that Otter populations were NOT recovering 'quite nicely' (whatever that is meant to mean) on their own, there were small isolated groups but these were small and a recovery through the natural process was impossible.

3, You say that Ecology would have limited the natural spread of Otters to within the confines of what it can stand.
Well if that is the case then we can expect Otters to die out in those areas where the Ecology cannot support their presence, and you will have nothing to worry about

4, The situation is not false, unlike fisheries so overstocked that if anglers stopped fishing them the fish would die of starvation.

.

1, No you are not correct, it's well documented that adult large predatory mammals do kill way beyond their nutritional needs, be that for 'fun' or to hone its hunting skills is complete conjecture. This is also in answer to this: "An Otter kills for food, not for 'sport', that's something reserved for us humans."

2, Incorrect, otters were making a good comeback on many river systems, the 'top ups' were made to increase the likelihood of a successful comeback and also to enlarge the gene pool.

3, If the increase in numbers occurred at a slower rate then the number of otters would not have peaked as high as it has, because on many rivers the fish populations consist of fewer but bigger fish. Do you need me to explain how that scenario creates an unsustainable inflated number of (in this case) otters.

4, As stated above the situation is false; though an equilibrium can be reached, what you and Paul seem to ignore is anglers are going to be miffed, as they're the only ones that are directly effected by the fewer bigger fish being predated and on many rivers the biomass void is not being filled!

---------- Post added at 15:20 ---------- Previous post was at 14:57 ----------

1, Cats, Orcas, Foxes yes I've seen them practise their hunting skills on TV or for real, Otters no, however I would be interested in reading a witness account as long as it wasn't from an angler.
........

I've asked this several times before; has anyone ever witnessed firsthand or know of someone who has witnessed, Otters being released?

Todate I've not had a single reply.

1, When otters have got into fish farms they have done the same as a fox when they get in a chicken house. There is plenty of evidence to back this up with; go find it.

2, I don't know the actual names of anyone that has released otters but Natural England with the EA's backing, have openly documented their otter releases.

 

[jack sprat]

From the evidence I saw the policy of reintroducing captive-bred otters was disastrous in that the gene pool was extremely small with consequent in-bred genetic defects, one of the reasons for it stopping.

 

[bennygesserit]

3, If the increase in numbers occurred at a slower rate then the number of otters would not have peaked as high as it has, because on many rivers the fish populations consist of fewer but bigger fish. Do you need me to explain how that scenario creates an unsustainable inflated number of (in this case) otters.

4, As stated above the situation is false; though an equilibrium can be reached, what you and Paul seem to ignore is anglers are going to be miffed, as they're the only ones that are directly effected by the fewer bigger fish being predated and on many rivers the biomass void is not being filled!

3 suggests something wrong with the river eco system rather than otters , a series of failed spawnings ? an unclean river ?

 

[richiekelly]

Although our rivers are not what they should be the lack of small fish is down to more than one thing, amongst them are floods and cormarants one nothing can be done about the other perhaps will have something done.

As I said previously otters populations were increasing naturally without interference, I read this on the Otter Trust website, why would they say that if it wasn't true? its interference by man that has caused the problem.

 

[bennygesserit]

Although our rivers are not what they should be the lack of small fish is down to more than one thing, amongst them are floods and cormarants one nothing can be done about the other perhaps will have something done.

As I said previously otters populations were increasing naturally without interference, I read this on the Otter Trust website, why would they say that if it wasn't true? its interference by man that has caused the problem.

wasn't that interference minimal i.e. roughly 100 pairs in the early nineties ?

 

[The bad one]

Since the early 90s I've been involved in the otter issue, researching and monitoring it nationally, originally for the SACG then the SAA and as an interested individual since the formation of the ATr. As a result, over this 16+ years experience I have amassed a large database of research and knowledge on the matter.

That said, it never cease to amaze me when Internet discussions come up on angling sites the misunderstandings of what actually happened regarding "captive bred otters" and the numbers released.

So here are the facts of how many were released by the Otter Trusts between 1983 and 1999 when the programme finished and “all” (2 of) the breeding sites were closed down.
There were 117 juveniles released and 17 mature adults “Brood stock” animals in total released nationally
A further 49 rehabilitated (orphan, injured) otters were released during this period by the Vincent Wildlife Trust. The bulk of these were released in the NE and Yorkshire
The total of captive bread otters 134
Rehabs 49
Grand total between 1983 –1999 183
http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/static/documents/Business/Otters_the_facts.pdf


Again there seems to be some misconception that English Nature and Environment Agency were involved in the breeding of animals, they were not. Their role was as regulators and to facilitate the running of the Otter Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) in England and Wales. It’s unclear but highly likely that the EA identified release sites and rivers for the OT to release the captives onto. Rightly or wrongly those sites/rivers would have had to be rivers classed under the EA’s criteria as of good ecological quality.

Again there’s some misunderstanding as to whether otters were increasing naturally. They were and if you read all the National Otter Surveys which are done and published every 5 years from when they started 1977, you’ll see a steady population increase nationally from 5.8 in the first to 58.8 in the most recent and 5th survey.

http://data.gov.uk/dataset/national-otter-surveys-1977to79-1984to86-1991to94-and-2000to02

http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/homeandleisure/wildlife/110740.aspx

So there you have it to pick the bones over

---------- Post added at 01:54 ---------- Previous post was at 01:19 ----------

Oh and if you really want to get into the science around otters, read some of these papers, better all but hey only the nerdies do that. And argue from an informed point of view. Liz Chadwick who heads the unit is one the most informed people in the UK about them.
School of Biosciences

 

[richiekelly]

Thanks for that TBO, what I cannot understand is why if as you have shown otter populations were growing naturally anyone would think it was the right thing to do to introduce captive bred animals.
It seems that no proper thought was given to the ecology of the rivers they were introduced into being able to withstand the introduction of an apex predator unless they just took the word of the EA as gospel and most anglers would know that it isn't.
As far as I am concerned this whole mess has been caused by lack of action on cormorants, the EA being economical with the truth about the state of our rivers and man interfering where there was no need to do so.

 

[Paul Boote]

Interfering.

Cuts both ways, blanker.

As a teenager in the mid 1970s I was living beside, fishing and managing a very nice stretch of a western Welsh sea-trout and salmon river complete with some very welcome, very rare anywhere in southern Britain at the time, resident otters.

Then a pack of otter hounds all the way out the Wye Valley strayed onto my stretch one morning, the guests of a neighbouring, very long in the tooth landowner who had said they could hunt his bit above 'mine' ... "There's some at the bottom end of mine...".

I told them to go, but not before being told by the Master or whoever he was that they no longer had otters to hunt on the Wye so had travelled 100 miles west to hunt them on this river; he even offered by way of mitigation "You're a fisher ... we're doing you a favour....".

"Leave, please."

Within a decade, those otters and a few pairs further upriver had spread northwards and eastwards to repopulate other Welsh rivers and were welcomed on them by local anglers; later still, they crossed the border into the English Midlands, repopulating the Wye as they did so.

They were on their way anyway, with DDT and otter hunting to be soon gone, fellas; a comparatively few introduced otters made very little difference.

 

[cg74]

3 suggests something wrong with the river eco system rather than otters , a series of failed spawnings ? an unclean river ?

Benny, you're right if a river has only big fish in it, it is a failing ecosystem, the causes for that are to numerous and varied to list.

 

[The bad one]

Blanker there are clearly lesions to be learned from this and things that today should be done as routine, which weren’t. However, it must be view in the context of the time rather than with today’s eyes.

It’s often been said there was no Ecological Impact Assessment (EcIA) carried out and that’s true. But in the time the bulk of release were taking place there was no requirement to do any such thing. In fact at the start of the releases and up and until about 1990, EcIAs weren’t even being talked about by anybody or the phrase coined. From about 1991-2 the EU started to debate Environmental Impact Assessments and work them up, which EcIA formed part of - Usually termed the Ecological Statement.
By around 1996 an EIA became mandatory for large development projects and passed into UK Planning Law. Only from then could it be argued with legal backup that there should have been EcIA done on releases, the breeding programme closed in 1999 3 years later.

So from this hopefully you can see the evolving regulations and the context as the years passed.

The Science around otters natural population expansion mirrored the above, it was in the first report poor. It only looked at England and only 500 sites in the whole country. I think from memory and without checking the second 1983 wasn’t much better, the date being significant. This report giving the OT the argument that a release programme would aid the relic populations that were found by it. The Nature Conservancy Council, forerunner of EN at the time, who’s job it was on behalf of the State to bring policies forward to aid wildlife in the nation, rightly or wrongly saw it as an opportunity to do something to show they were trying to protect and increase this iconic species.
I’ve no doubt in my mind that there was a bit of thinking on their part, it won’t cost us the State anything, as an NGO is going to do it for us and pay for it.
The NGO also having at the time, a very charismatic, cajoling and pushy individual heading it up.

So with what we would now consider poor science by today’s standards the OT got their way and the programme went ahead with the blessing of the NCC. By the 3rd report the science and numbers of sites surveyed had got better and started to show significant signs of recovery of the population.

Whether that was down to the releases or natural population expansion I have my doubt, as by the 1989 report they could have only released a max of 40-50 animals nationally. It’s now known that from all the captives released about 30% perished through some reason or other, roadkill mainly, within 12 months of release.

Yes the science was poor by today’s standards but within the context it was set in it was the best available at that time.
The lesions to be learnt are that full EcIAs must be done before we consider releasing extinct native species back into the British Landscape.

That the most modern and up to date scientific tests of rigour have to be applied

That the powers that be must take in to account the views of “all” stakeholders and not be swayed by vocal charismatic personalities from one side or another.

Where there are doubts that we take the precautionary principle of not releasing them until the science is certain they pose little risk to the wider flora and fauna.

---------- Post added at 15:04 ---------- Previous post was at 14:40 ----------

Again there’s some misunderstanding as to whether otters were increasing naturally. They were and if you read all the National Otter Surveys which are done and published every 5 years from when they started 1977, you’ll see a steady population increase nationally from 5.8 in the first to 58.8 in the most recent and 5th survey.

This statement might also mislead some into think the population has increased by 58.8 %, it has not and I should have explained this figure better.

When they survey they look at otter poo (No Crocker you’re banned so do make comment using Spiders access, as it a serious thread) in a 600 transect. If poo is found in that transect it’s marked as a positive site that otters visit it. What it can’t and doesn’t tell them is how many otters there are. Also it can’t tell them whether one otter the same otter has crossed several transects, which is likely given the size of their territories.
What the figure 58.8 % really says is 58.8% of all transects surveyed showed positive signs of otters present.

 

[richiekelly]

Thanks for that very interesting and informative post TBO, I now have (as I hope others have) a much clearer picture of what went on with the reintroductions, I am a great believer that nature if allowed will always find a balance, its yet to be seen if that will be the case with otters and fish but I hope so.

 

[jack sprat]

In Dorset and Hampshire the otter spraints are/were (not sure they're still doing it) DNA tested which is how a) they determined how many otters there were b) that some of the otters in different watersheds far apart were more closely related that ought to be the case i.e. all bred from same captive pair.

 

[bennygesserit]

In Dorset and Hampshire the otter spraints are/were (not sure they're still doing it) DNA tested which is how a) they determined how many otters there were b) that some of the otters in different watersheds far apart were more closely related that ought to be the case i.e. all bred from same captive pair.

One method used, mentioned in the pdf I posted at the start of this thread , was to very closely monitor otters in an enclosed area , an Island I think, by physically spending a lot of effort monitoring them with teams of volunteers using binoculars. This was then compared to the spraint method.

The spraint method is not accurate though it can be used as an indication of growth.

---------- Post added at 19:44 ---------- Previous post was at 19:42 ----------

Benny, you're right if a river has only big fish in it, it is a failing ecosystem, the causes for that are to numerous and varied to list.

I read British otters live shorter lives than their Scottish counterparts apparantley due to residual pollution in the system.

 

[Chris Hammond ( RSPB ACA PAC}]

Phil, Isn't the contention that several illegal and unrecorded releases were made? I'd be interested in your experiences or views on illegal re-introductions.

Have to say on a personal note your posts and references on the subject are a breath of fresh air and have shed light on the realities of the situation for me. Really appreciate the information.