Otter PR machine in overdrive

[Chris Guy]

You need to re-read my message old chap. I said anglers that I personally know. And I stand by that. You are lucky not to suffer these animals at the level we do.

 

[Paul Boote]

Interesting this one . So the Salmon is in decline on the Wye ,the implication being that this may be due in part to upsurge in barbel numbers and their penchant for salmon eggs , so I presume that the salmon anglers see the barbel as public enemy number one rather than the otter ?. In turn many barbel anglers see the otter as the devil incarnate and yet the the barbel appear to be doing very well on the river , presumably this is down to the fact that the place is not over run with otters ? The point I am trying to make is that it appears that each special interest has it's own scapegoat but each argument in turn has a flaw .Don't the Wye otters eat salmon ? Do the Wye barbel only targer salmon eggs / redds ? . The Wye is full of chub , don't they eat the salmon eggs , surely should blame should be heaped on them ?

Mostly the perception, Mike - "Our river's gone downhill since the 1970s and 1980s ... ever since since those expletive deleted barbel were put in and bred like rabbits...". Barbel do hoover salmon spawn, I saw them at it a number of times on the Hants Avon just below Salisbury in the early 1970s (watching, on one memorable occasion, a massive 30-pound-plus c0ck salmon turn and a seize in its jaws what was almost certainly a double-figure barbel and throw into the air and several feet across the gravel shallows, the redds, in which he and his lady friends were spawning). So, it's the blame game and scapegoating, once again - this time with the barbel getting it in the neck, not the otters.

 

[Chris Guy]

Just a shame that the above mentioned rivers aren't well enough managed to breed barbel now. Those who fish flowing stockponds, just like modern carpers, are quick to demand death to anything that threatens the artifice...

There is no money to manage these rivers the way they should be, the EA are virtually skint and vastly undermanned. They also seem to spend a vast percentage of their budget on flood prevention around these parts. ie widening course ways, ripping out reed beds, weed beds, completely stripping away bank-side trees and vegetation and I could go on.

 

[Paul Boote]

But nailing a few otters will do absolutely nothing to alleviate the problem: otters or no otters, rivers gone bad will continue to have to be topped up with instant fish. What saddens me is not only the self-deceiving mindset of many of those who fish such rivers, but also the vindictive mentality that seems to dog some of them.

 

[Andy Millichamp]

I'm wary of getting involved in a thread that I don't know enough about. But here goes anyway...

I thought it worthwhile reposting this, which came from brief report I did of this year's Barbel Show:

"Nick Giles (Conservationist and author of The Nature of Barbel) did a talk on the 'O' word. Nice to get some facts to go with the rumours and sensationalism, although I wish I'd taken notes. Some salient points (from a poor memory): a study of otter stools on a stillwater showed that they mostly fed on crayfish, plus small roach and the occasional other species. They didn't eat any carp or trout. On the rivers, they also fed on various crustaceans, and their favourite fish were small chub and roach, although they did eat some small barbel. It's very rare that otters eat larger barbel, but you do get the odd rogue otter that will eat them. (I couldn't help wondering as he talked whether you could improve the lot of barbel by stocking more roach?)

Nick's feeling, as I understood it, seemed to be that while otters have had some impact on barbel polulations in some rivers, other environmental factors have played a big part, including flooding, especially in 2007. In many cases, the barbel weren't just "washed downstream", they died. Flood damage to banks, cover and snags have played a significant part in the decline of barbel stocks. We can improve stocks by improving their environment - banks, cover, snags, polution, etc. ".

Clearly Barbel stocks have been devastated in some rivers, and it's human to look for someone/something to blame. And of course an easy target is going to appeal; yet so often the situation is much more complex. I'm not saying otters aren't to blame, they might be, I don't know either way — the evidence seems as yet far from conclusive. The Wye has been reported as being at "maximum capacity" for otters, yet the barbel are thriving there, it's teeming with them.

And just for the record, Chris ... I'm another angler who enjoys the sight of an otter on the river. For now at least.

 

[David Gauntlett]

But nailing a few otters will do absolutely nothing to alleviate the problem: otters or no otters, rivers gone bad will continue to have to be topped up with instant fish. What saddens me is not only the self-deceiving mindset of many of those who fish such rivers, but also the vindictive mentality that seems to dog some of them.

I quite agree with most of what you say on this issue Paul, and am happy to admit that the more reasoned of the arguments put forward by your good self, and one or two others, have been instrumental in partially modifying my stance on this contentious issue. It is a fact that only a fool would seek to deny that man's greed and over use of water, and all the other ills that we collectively batter our rivers with.....are indisputably the major problem here.

However (I always have one of those to hand ) another indisputable fact is that otters do kill barbel. Sadly, it is also true that at this time, when the major traditional part of an otters diet (eels) are at an all time low, then otters kill LOTS of barbel. In other words, the unnatural situation we have bought about by dooming the eel to probable extinction in our lifetime has had the side effect of causing the otter to eat unnatural levels of barbel (amongst other things). Add that fact to the general malaise of our waterways, and from there it doesn't take a genius to work out that in SOME rivers, the barbels days are numbered....whereas they MAY have battled through if the otters were not present. We can't change that fact, and yes we DO have to learn to live with it....but I don't see it as strange that some might be upset by it.

What I am trying to say is that it is a little unfair to put down everyone who despairs at the otters unnatural levels of predation of their favourite quarry as
having a 'self deceiving mindset', or a 'vindictive mentality'. The majority of these people are just poor working slobs who are gutted at seeing the looming demise of their favourite after work pastime. Normal human beings?

Otters are not the villains here, they are a beautiful indigenous creatures with every right to be here that have been rescued from the very jaws of extinction. It is just a sad fact that this MAY have a trade off in endangering the well being of other creatures, certainly in smaller rivers...sods law in action I fear

Cheers, Dave.

 

[Ash Gould]

But nailing a few otters will do absolutely nothing to alleviate the problem: otters or no otters, rivers gone bad will continue to have to be topped up with instant fish. What saddens me is not only the self-deceiving mindset of many of those who fish such rivers, but also the vindictive mentality that seems to dog some of them.

I think some people would rather of seen a 'bottom up' approach to river management then this supposed man made imbalance would not skew peoples views so much.

Adding otters to 'rivers gone bad' was surely not the best plan. Im not overly negative about otters but more my perception that the re-introduction of them in the Ouse catchment was not completely thought out.

Id rather the money that went into re-introducing otters had gone into improving the rivers first.

 

[Pete Marshall]

Or perhaps even the rather larger amounts of taxpayers money spent turning large amounts of land into ponds and lakes, which have rather taken over around the Ouse, could have been spent on agricultural changes and environmental improvements too the catchment?

After all the release programmes may have been licensed by Natural England and the EA but they were funded by charitable donations, whilst the building of loads and loads of stillwaters were and still are grant aided by DeFRA the EU (in other words the taxpayer).

These stillwaters have of course proved popular with both anglers and otters. They may have been a great idea, but they certainly took a large amount of environmental cash from the pot that could have been spent on rivers.

 

[Chris Guy]

But nailing a few otters will do absolutely nothing to alleviate the problem: otters or no otters, rivers gone bad will continue to have to be topped up with instant fish. What saddens me is not only the self-deceiving mindset of many of those who fish such rivers, but also the vindictive mentality that seems to dog some of them.

Here on the Ouse we had a very healthy head of medium-large-very large barbel, until the otters were re-introduced.
Please don't preach to us here on the Ouse catchment area Paul. Our fishing for them and chub has been devastated.

 

[David Hall]

if you haven't read the article in the june 2010 CAT mag, it's in my album, very intresting thoughts.

 

[Paul Boote]

Here on the Ouse we had a very healthy head of medium-large-very large barbel, until the otters were re-introduced.
Please don't preach to us here on the Ouse catchment area Paul. Our fishing for them and chub has been devastated.

Not preaching, Chris - it's so unbecoming - merely drawing to the attention of others that those who fish stockponds, whether still or flowing, perhaps should ensure that they're without sin before chucking stones.

 

[Chris Guy]

So who are these that are throwing the stones please Paul?