I must admit to thinking that the otter problem will eventually level out. Natural deaths and food stocks will force a sustainable balance. Sadly that may well mean losing some prized fish in some stretches but there ain't a lot we can do about it.
I do feel the biggest issue as far a predation goes, is the cormorant problem. The work carried out by the Angling Trust and us anglers have highlighted the severity of the problem. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, however hopefully their results will lead to better control methods of these birds. Then we need some research into eradicating the American signal crayfish. Perhaps then we will see an improvement in the fish population in our rivers and lakes. If that could ever be achieved, I'm sure the otter issue would not be not be so severe in some areas, as it currently is.
Hi Nathan,
I'd agree with you that in the fullness of time, regardless of the destruction along the way that the inflated populations of Otters in some areas where they have been released in excessive numbers, would start to level out to a sustainable balance, but that level will be a long time coming whilst orphaned Otters are 'rehabilitated', Otters that nature would see die in the natural process of population stabalisation.
Once again interference from idiots who have no conception of the knock on effects of their actions will prevent nature doing what nature does best.
I've said in many past discussions about this, that we live in a world ( and our little corner of it ) where the ecology whether we like it or not is managed by us - Humans - some of us seem to make great strides in rectifying the damage of past years, whilst others no doubt in the belief they are doing great good, seem by their actions to wreck the good work of others, this is because they have one agenda, without looking at the much much bigger picture.
As i said in those previous threads, nature no matter what we do ( good or bad ) will try to achieve a balance with whatever it has to work with at the time, which is what would have eventually happened even with the massively excessive introductions of captive bred Otters into areas where it was known they would fair best given the prey food on offer, mostly in areas where great efforts had been made previously in river habitat restoration, and because of the proximity of privately owned stillwater fisheries.
But once again in as far as the Otter issue goes the goal posts change, and nature will again find itself challenged in it's attempts to restore a natural balance, because it's attempts to achieve that balance are once again being thwarted by do gooders interfereing in the natural order, hand rearing, and re-introducing Otters which otherwise nature would not have allowed to survive.
These poor creatures will be introduced into an enviroment they are not equipped to deal with having had no natural training from their mothers, and will almost certainly be attacked by other Otters into whose territories they have been released, thats without any other attacks from foxes etc, where again apart from natural instinct, they have not had the benefit of their mothers training in avoiding predators.
How cruel is that ? and reminds me of the original introductions by Phillip Ware, who is on record as saying in reply to somebody pointing out that the Otters would sustain very high mortality rates, he said ... That as regretable as the mortality rate would be, they would just reintroduce more to compensate, that is not a 'quote' by the way.
What infuriates me is the willingness of the EA to conveniently look the other way, and as we see here from this article even try to play down, in the face of OVERWHELMING evidence to the contrary of the damage otters have done to mature fish stocks at least in some areas, damage which they were a party to inflicting, by their involvement, albeit indirectly with those who carried out the introductions.
This article to my mind is nothing more than a PR exercise, and damage limitation, like Ray Walton, i'd be very interested to see more evidence of how they retrieved all their tracking devices, being the cynic i am, i smell a rat here, something just doesn't seem right.
But i have to agree with you Nathan, the way things stand at the moment, there's nothing we can do about it.
Ian.