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The Otters Next Victim

Stuart Bradley said:
Better idea...Ban whining anglers and fish keepers..and let the otters do what comes naturally...
There's only one animal on this planet that is a real threat to everything...breeding out of hand and ruining it's and others environments.
Let's try and guess what it is????????????????????????????:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:
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:D:D:D:D Oh how quaint. So you think reintroducing otters into an environment that has proven (by the fact that they died out 'naturally' first time round) that it can no longer support them....was a good idea :rolleyes:

And when the otters have done 'What comes naturally', i.e, have once again eaten all the life that the open sewers we call rivers could offer them....what then? Are you going to rush to the fishmongers and spend everything you own on feeding the poor critters? Or will you stand by, as we all did last time, and watch them slowly starve to death? Could you explain to me which of those two options you would see as most 'Natural' ?

Mankind is indeed the worst threat to the planet we live on...but we are not going to change that fact. The best we can do is to try to modify the worst traits of our own stupidity and appalling behaviour. I would suggest that cleaning up our disgusting waterways should be pretty high on the list of 'things to do', in the unlikely event that 'we' (as in the current generation of our species) ever agree to do anything that doesn't involve an immediate financial benefit.

If we ever do achieve that (and I will not be holding my breath while I wait), then and ONLY then would it possibly be a good idea to reintroduce some of the species we have criminally destroyed. THAT would be as close as we could possibly get now to anything approaching 'natural'.

Oh...and to 'whine' when the unthinking stupidty of others has ruined the one pastime we adopted to bring a few brief hours of peace and tranquillity to the madhouse we have created IS 'natural'...even if it isn't altogether logical :D:D

Cheers, Dave.
 
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Build more commercial fisheries, that should keep em pre occupied from the rivers ;) and who said commercials had no place.:D
 
The Chairman, entertaining Letitia (my niece, allegedly) -

34nlks9


- on the Castle terrace, on a glorious Friday afternoon



Occurred to me just now, though, that the damned otters can probably take can penalties much better than "We" can...

Anyway, back to young Lettie.


As ever,

B.B.

"The Beauchamps - Monopolizers of the Irish-born Michael, Since 1066"
 
David Gauntlett said:
:D:D:D:D Oh how quaint. So you think reintroducing otters into an environment that has proven (by the fact that they died out 'naturally' first time round) that it can no longer support them....was a good idea :rolleyes:
.
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Dave....nothing "natural" about why their numbers diminished ....surely that was because of the stuff we were putting into rivers, thus decimating their food source?
We are now reintroducing their food at a massive rate of knots... so why does it not make sense to have otters there (agreed in controlled numbers) to redress the natural equilibrium???
 
How can it be natural stuart to reintroduce otters where there are already resident otters???..and then the new ones get driven out or killed by the already resident dog otter or starve to death?..have you not read the rspca report on this matter?..
 
Stuart Bradley said:
Dave....nothing "natural" about why their numbers diminished ....surely that was because of the stuff we were putting into rivers, thus decimating their food source?
We are now reintroducing their food at a massive rate of knots... so why does it not make sense to have otters there (agreed in controlled numbers) to redress the natural equilibrium???
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Stuart,

There are already otters in the wild. I don't believe any reasonable angler or fish-keeper has a problem with natural levels of otter population. The problems start when too many are introduced into too small an area with too little food. That is just irresponsible.

R.
 
Stuart Bradley said:
We are now reintroducing their food at a massive rate of knots... so why does it not make sense to have otters there (agreed in controlled numbers) to redress the natural equilibrium???
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Where Stuart? Where are we introdicing fish at such a rate? Certainly not on my local rivers which have not and will not be stocked for the forseable future!

The reason the Otters are eating pond pets is because the river's can't support them - plain and simple. I find it hard to understand that you as an angler can't see that.

Having read the 'Otter Facts' in the first article highlighted by Dav H you can see why those who aren't familiar with their feeding habits wouldn't see them as much of a problem - 1kg of fish per day isn't a lot. As we know they generally only eat the gills and maybe the organs but the rest of the carcass is discarded ( probably 90% of the fishes total weight ) - so for Mr Otter to get his 1kg of fish he's probably killed 10kg of fish. It's not hard to see how a pair of otters taking 20kg of fish a day can wipe out the adult fish population in a stretch quite quickly!

It's a man made mess that will need a man made solution - long term - first and foremost should be ensuring the rivers are capable of supporting the top end predators - that will take some time - untill then . . .

'Pass me the Remmington would you, there's another one of the blighters'
 
an otter searching out pond fish is the same as a human searching out food in bins,
what otter would travel overland to find some food if they could get it from a river.
homeless otters, what next.
 
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I suppose the only positive from otters venturing further afield in search of food, is that they might well succumb to the car, most other species take a bashing on the roads, so fingers crossed!!!!!!!
peter
 
Stuart Bradley said:
Dave....nothing "natural" about why their numbers diminished ....surely that was because of the stuff we were putting into rivers, thus decimating their food source?
We are now reintroducing their food at a massive rate of knots... so why does it not make sense to have otters there (agreed in controlled numbers) to redress the natural equilibrium???
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Stuart,

Most of the original otters did indeed die off as a natural result of the problems we presented them with, and as you say, the main problem was lack of prey fish due to pollution. However, there is also the problem of habitat loss caused by thoughtless councils allowing building on water meadows, wetland drainage, rivers being culverted so that they can be built over, E.A. flood relief vandals causing untold damage (including canalising of rivers)...the list goes on and on.

The problem is your use of the word 'were' when talking about the muck we pump into our rivers. Do you seriously think that we have stopped doing that? We still pump huge amounts of crud into our rivers...the amount of raw sewage that is released into our waters under various pretexts is astounding, and the 'accidental' chemical releases, where the 'fine', even if the guilty parties are aprehended, is less than the cost of legal disposal :rolleyes:. Why on earth do you think the EU is issuing all sorts of threats of dire action if we do not very soon bring our waterways up to at least the required minimal cleanliness standards?

"We are now reintroducing their food at a massive rate of knots" :eek:...Where on earth did that idea come from? The only current stocking of fish into our rivers is carried out to replace the losses caused by the various pollutions that STILL happen on a daily basis, and the huge mortality rate that the cormorants WE starved out of their natural hunting grounds are wreaking, and the various other new problems we have unleashed. In many cases the restocking doesn't even keep pace with these losses.

The only other fish we are introducing "at a massive rate of knots" are various types of carp (most of which are sterile) that fishery owners are shovelling into their manufactured mud-hole fisheries. These fisheries cost a fortune to build, and to stock, and are obviously run as commercial enterprises. I assume you are not naive enough to imagine that these business men are going to welcome otters into their fisheries to eat their valuable stock :rolleyes: There have already been several of these fishery owners that have gone bankrupt due to the predations of cormorants and otters...I doubt very much that too many others will stand by and watch this happen on their patch without reacting in one way or another :rolleyes:

So...where exactly are these 'new' food sources that you talk about that make reintroduction of otters a sensible proposition? These critters have now decimated many valuable river fisheries, simply because the predator/prey equasion is WAY out of sinc...Adams Mill being probably the most famous, and thus most talked about example of this problem in action.

I fish several lakes where there are now NO silver fish present, only large tench, bream and carp are left, and that is purely down to cormorants. Can you imagine what would happen if otters now move into those fisheries?

As Paul boot has so rightly pointed out, this IS the sad state of affairs that we have been presented with, and for various well talked about reasons, there is NOTHING we can do about it...we must put up, and shut up.

However...I do NOT need people like you telling me that this is a 'natural' situation, and that I should in effect rejoice in that fact because it is all my own doing :mad:

Cheers, Dave.
 
The fact that the vast majority of licence payers spend their weekends on venues with multiple air pumps to maintain the stock density is another matter Dav!

In any case they are probably right - the cute n cuddlies ( Otters ) will have decimated our rivers - to the rejoice of the general public; largely due to the nice picture on page 7 of todays Strensall Observer.

Pasties in puddles are our angling future!

'Pass me the Remmington would you - i may be some time......'
 
Andrew Boyne said:
'Pass me the Remmington would you - i may be some time......'
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What you going to do with a 'fuzz away'?

Think I might start taking bets on which one of you gun toting rednecks are going to be the next Derrick Bird!:D

First person to 'get it', The Chief Executive of Natural England!
 
Boring facts, rather than ill informed nonsense and therefore sure to be ignored.
Otters nearly, note nearly as there were always some otters around in the UK in areas with low agricultural pollution such as most of the highlands of Scotland and certain rivers such as the Teme which is one of the reasons the Teme is a SSSI, died out because of agi chemical run off causing infertility (long since banned). Nothing to do with lack of food, nothing to do with hunting. Most Otter hunts had a voluntary ban on hunting long before Otters were protected under CITIES and WCA.
Otters are protected under the Wildlife and Country side act (WCA), not European legislation. They are also protected on the CITIES Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, an international agreement again not European although implemented through the EU in European countries. This bans trade in Otters. Killing them is banned under WCA and a license to kill them can be applied for (however none had as of last year).
If you are going to campaign for an otter cull it might be useful to get the facts straight otherwise you really will be ignored.And I wish you all the best in calling for an otter cull, I can't wait for the newspaper headlines!
 
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