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Predation

Thats an accurate description of what goes on here yes, and the continual back and forth of the 'knocking' process (oO-er!) :D is the 'hot air' that I described. I would point out I'm in the same boat as you, not a great fan of otters! I'm not knocking the opinion that something needs to be done about them, however it just appears people forget the bigger picture and the one topic that gets continually dragged out is predators, would you not agree? If you were to formulate a list of issues you wanted sorted out, would otters (predators) really appear at the top of that list? If so why? compared to the other threats to our rivers and their inhabitants. Lets try some useful discussion rather than knocking, I didn't mean for it to appear that way.
 
My own personal number one problem is signals. I think these are also likely to be the most difficult to control which is ironic when you think they are the only one we can cull pretty well at will! Living in the Thames area it is obvious these creatures feature quite a bit on anglers list of pests. Otters have caused problems too, in particular on the Cherwell and Upper Thames areas. The problem is the size of fish they can destroy.
There is some very interesting reading on here somewhere about a young girl doing her phd on the Ouse barbel and she concluded it as signals being the number one threat.
I'm not sure people forget the bigger picture, I think all the problems together make one massive, unhealthy picture anyway!
 
Roman Vann said:
Thats an accurate description of what goes on here yes, and the continual back and forth of the 'knocking' process (oO-er!) :D is the 'hot air' that I described. I would point out I'm in the same boat as you, not a great fan of otters! I'm not knocking the opinion that something needs to be done about them, however it just appears people forget the bigger picture and the one topic that gets continually dragged out is predators, would you not agree? If you were to formulate a list of issues you wanted sorted out, would otters (predators) really appear at the top of that list? If so why? compared to the other threats to our rivers and their inhabitants. Lets try some useful discussion rather than knocking, I didn't mean for it to appear that way.
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Surely anything that has an unnatural impact on the natural recruitment of our fish stocks is of concern and worthy of debate?
Water quality and flow regimes are often the invisible culprits, and are therefore often overlooked by anglers, just like the fishstocks,..or lack of,.that are unoticed by those who champion the re-introduction of the otter and the rspb's defence of the cormmorant. Out of sight, out of mind.
Try telling those who frequent some of our prestigious carp stillwaters that otters are'nt a serious concern.
I happen to agree with Hugh Miles that because of the impact of the cormmorant, it was cruel to release otters into an enviroment that could not support them.
All these issues are of importance to us, and it seems daft to quibble as to which is trivial or insignificant.
Not forgetting the signal crayfish,....which certainly deserves to be on the list!:mad:
 
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Had a bad crayfish problem on one of my local rivers but they have been almost eradicated now, the otters turned to them after they'd eaten all the adult chub and roach. Unlike the chub and roach populations though, I'm sure the signals will recover in no time. I agree that our rivers have several serious problems, otters being just one of them. The reason otters attract so much hatred is because once they take up residence on over abstracted rivers with poor juvenile fish recruitment due to either signal crayfish or the silting of spawning beds, fishing is pretty well pointless after a season or two. The Ouse, Wensum and BA have all gone that way. I can only assume other rivers have survived the same fate with the help of some rather creative keepering ! The balance nature eventually finds (I personally find no comfort in that pointless phrase) will not be one we've seen before, because never before has man resigned his role as the apex predator, and allowed other predators to take the lions share of our fish stocks. At the moment the only policy which seems plausible is to continually restock the rivers, which is a bit like feeding the animals at the zoo.
Very depressing.

Nick C
 
I am aware from another forum, that there is talk of setting up a website to educate the general public about the damage that otter's cause, not just to fish stocks but also to birds and other wildlife.

The idea seems to be that there will be no mention of angling so that the public don't get the idea that we are anti otter but, will try to show the otter in its true light as an apex predator.

Could be interesting and help change some perceptions.
 
Hello Dave - thanks for posting the link to Hugh Miles. I've not previously seen it.
Hugh has 'been around a bit' in the natural world and he knows (as many anglers do) that all is far from well in the British Countryside - and I'm not just talking about our waterways.

I'm lucky enough to have fished many of our major rivers when they supported large populations of fish of all species - sadly as many of us are well aware, this is not now the case!

Here is a particularly poignant paragraph from Hugh's presentation:

'There's a toxic concoction of threats out there.......the reality in the world of wildlife is alarming. We live at a time of unprecedented declines in many species of freshwater wildlife and unless we all work together to reverse the declines, it aint going to get better any time soon. The list makes depressing reading.'
 
?

these rivers that the otters wiped out,is there anything left and have the otters moved on? and did they already have problems with other predators?
 
A good friend of mine will tell you where some otters are going.

He used to have a garden pond full of fish, but returning from holiday a couple of years ago he found them all dead and scattered over the lawn. The greater part of some fish had been eaten but it seemed that the others had been killed just for the sake of it. Oh, and for good measure the pond was totally trashed with all the water plants strewn about the garden.
 
Roger Carswell said:
Hello Dave - thanks for posting the link to Hugh Miles. I've not previously seen it.


Here is a particularly poignant paragraph from Hugh's presentation:

'There's a toxic concoction of threats out there.......the reality in the world of wildlife is alarming. We live at a time of unprecedented declines in many species of freshwater wildlife and unless we all work together to reverse the declines, it aint going to get better any time soon. The list makes depressing reading.'
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I think the most depressing, but not surprising aspect of the blog was that the beeb left that bit on the cutting room floor Roger!:(
 
Roger Carswell said:
Hello Dave -

I'm lucky enough to have fished many of our major rivers when they supported large populations of fish of all species - sadly as many of us are well aware, this is not now the case!

Have a look at my profile page Roger, perhaps we've crossed lines in the past!:D
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Martin Gregory said:
I am aware from another forum, that there is talk of setting up a website to educate the general public about the damage that otter's cause, not just to fish stocks but also to birds and other wildlife.

The idea seems to be that there will be no mention of angling so that the public don't get the idea that we are anti otter but, will try to show the otter in its true light as an apex predator.

Could be interesting and help change some perceptions.
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Could be interesting Martin but I think that the vast majority of the public couldn't give a toss about fish welfare / stocks . Might be more mileage in publicising the damage otters do to birds , mammals etc as they have more general appeal to Joe public being , pretty / fluffy and cute compared to a none cuddly and largely unseen fish . I reckon people may get concerned if it was shown to them that Otters were at risk because of lack of food stocks , i.e. fish !
 
Mark Gaskell said:
just a question is it illegal to disturb commorants nests?
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. Don't know Mark , give a nest a shove and see if the Cormorants call in the rozzers ! You can get a permit to cull cormorants by shooting ,but having seen the documentation / hoops you have to jump through it's hardly worth it unless you are very keen
 
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More wonderful news about otters! Today’s Daily Mail devotes an entire page to the little darlings under the headline ‘Nature’s Greatest Comeback’ – we almost wiped them out…now otters are enchanting proof that wild life can survive man’s careless destruction.

The article’s author waxes lyrically about wonderful bucolic scenes of natural harmony, where otters frolic good-naturedly in every river system and every county in Britain. He also goes on to say that ‘they are playful and affectionate with their young, happily floating on their backs and letting the pups pile onto their long, soft stomachs’.

Most newspaper articles and TV programmes peddle similar mawkish fare when reporting about otters. There are two sides to every argument but when anglers’ voice concerns they are portrayed as the villains. Like it or not, otters are apex predators and are only too happy to assert their authority in the natural world. It’s not just fish that have suffered – water birds such as grebes, mallards and moorhens regularly feature on the menu and the near extinct water vole will no doubt also provide a tasty morsel if encountered by this ‘cuddly’ predator.

Otters should be quite rightly be considered as part of Britain’s natural landscape, but the over-zealous introduction of large numbers of ‘raised in captivity’ creatures has created an un-natural imbalance. Our fish have never been under such sustained predation. Goosanders and cormorants (not to mention seals) have done untold damage on many of our waterways and an artificially inflated otter population is providing the straw that may well ‘break the camels’ back of our rivers and lakes.

What we have here is yet another example of well-meaning individuals causing problems by interfering with nature. Celebrity naturalists bang on about endangered species (usually in other parts of the world) but surely a river in this country with virtually no fish is also an ecological disaster – but of course fish are nasty slimy things that you rarely see and we all know that the ‘Great British Public’ are suckers for cuddly, furry whiskered creatures.

Only the other day, the Daily Mail carried an article about a poorly puppy that was brought over here from Bulgaria to give it a better life. I rest my case……….
 
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Hi Mike, I think the idea is to set up a website that never mentions angling. The thinking is that people see the otter as Tarka, lovely, furry and some sort of a hero. The reality is, they will eat just about anything they can get to grips with.

I know there is plenty of photographic evidence of fish kills but there also a few photo's showing the remains of tufted duck, mallard etc. These will obviously be shown to demonstrate exactly what carnage the otter is creating in the countryside.

I'm guessing Joe Public never sees any of this so it may be a bit of a wake up call. I'm told the proposed site will be called something like British Otters, hopefully it'll be the first site folk come across if they are wanting to have a bit of a closer on line look at our furry fiends.
 
Mike Hodgkiss said:
I reckon people may get concerned if it was shown to them that Otters were at risk because of lack of food stocks , i.e. fish !
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Spot on Mike. Otters are not going to go away. As anglers we need to learn to live with them. The best thing we can do right now is to educate Joe public that many of our rivers are incapable of supporting a healthy population of Otters due to a lack of food. If we do that, Joe public will want something done about it - join river trusts, conservation groups etc and fight for cleaner, healthier river systems that have sustainable food stocks for the Otter. If we do that we have won because the entire nation will be fighting the same cause as us.
I wish more anglers could see that. There are too many amongst our ranks who see every fish eating predator as an enemy that should be eradicated. The Otter thing has gone on for so long now that I fear the reputation of anglers will never recover in the eyes of the non angling public so the new site that doesn't mention angling is a step in the right direction. However, showing pictures of lots of mutilated fish and the odd duck is not going to achieve anything - except perhaps insult the intelligence of many a viewer. Joe public knows the Otter is an apex predator - seeing a video of an Otter chewing a Carp or Barbel, or even a Bittern is no different to them than watching a pride of Lions make a kill on Wildlife on One. Otters eat stuff - get over it. What Joe public doesn't know is that Otters don't have enough to eat in many areas so to see a nationwide recovery much work has to be done to achieve sustainable fish stocks in our rivers.
 
Absolutely spot on that Andrew, sort the rivers out and we can have otters and good fishing and everyone is happy.
I was watching a worrying bit of local news yesterday where farmers were moaning about how the EA won't let them turn rivers into faceless canals to save their land from flooding. The NFU are backing them as well, that's quite a powerful lobby group to have behind you, this to me is a far bigger problem than any predators.
 
Andrew, you say ‘otters eat stuff – get over it’.

Well it's not just otters that eat stuff. The point I’ve tried to make on many occasions now, is that combined predation from goosanders, cormorants, mink, seals, otters etc. is just not sustainable! In many cases the lack of fish isn’t just a product of poor water quality. You can’t just keep taking and taking! When a few fry do manage to get a toe hold, the next wave of predatory birds just wipes them out.

For as long as I can remember, the river Severn in my native Shrewsbury provided magnificent sport for roach and dace during the winter and spring – now, these species are a rarity. This situation is being replicated all over the country and as I’ve said before – if this carries on, our rivers in particular, will have nothing much to offer for future generations of anglers.

I’ve just returned from a session at a local lake where I spent most of the day watching a dozen or more goosanders feeding avidly about a hundred yards away from me. Nearly every natural venue that I fish has declined due to some sort of predation.

Many younger anglers may not recognize, or be aware of the magnitude of the problem but anglers like me who’ve spent a lifetime on the riverbank are all singing from the same hymn sheet. Are we all just a bunch of miserable old ‘Victor Meldrews’? Well, I don’t think so - some of us are passionate about our sport and believe that it’s worth fighting for. I for one certainly don’t want to fish on artificial fisheries where the owners are forced to erect fences (sometimes electrified) to protect the fish that they contain. So much for ‘England’s green and pleasant land’.

Yes, that was another rant from me (sorry lads) and I suppose that one day I’ll get over it. When that day comes though, I’ll probably find it awfully difficult to cast a line from inside a wooden box!
 
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