Otters in the news

[Lincs Yellowbelly]

Thanks for that. I've seen most of those links before, unfortunatly most of them are a good 5 or so years old. I think as stated in your previous post open access fisheries are much more likely to get funding if it's still available, unfortunatly non of my waters are open access

[vole-woman]

Worth looking into, though, surely? It's clear the EA are/were certainly trying to find a middle ground.

[Lincs Yellowbelly]

Originally Posted by vole-woman

Worth looking into, though, surely? It's clear the EA are/were certainly trying to find a middle ground.

I've sent them an email and will report back with their reply

[trisenviro]

I have had this debate about otters taking fish with a few pople latley.

Here is how I see it.

In short otters take fish to survive, we take fish for fun!

Otters were here before we started fishing

People should be privalaged to see them and have them around, wasnt long ago there werent many at all.

If you provide food for a wild animal thats what youtr going to get (same with pheasants and other game species)

I would rather see an otter than a carp.

Put more fish in.

Otters can be kept out with rather in-expensive electric fencing in most cases.

[Lincs Yellowbelly]

Originally Posted by trisenviro

I have had this debate about otters taking fish with a few pople latley.

Here is how I see it.

In short otters take fish to survive, we take fish for fun!

Most anglers don't take fish anyway, Coarse anglers return fish.

Otters were here before we started fishing

I suppose it depends on how many millions of years you want to go back into history really, it becomes a bit accademic

People should be privalaged to see them and have them around, wasnt long ago there werent many at all.

If you provide food for a wild animal thats what your going to get (same with pheasants and other game species)

Most lakes where probably stocked way before Otters were re-introduced into many parts of the country, when they were stock you didn't have the issues surrounding otters to contend with. In fairness if you where starting a fishery from scratch these days only an idiot wouldn't erect a fence of some description. Unfortunatly with the way many old lakes are mapped out or the size of the lake fences are either impractical or to expensive.

I would rather see an otter than a carp.

Thats personal opinion, I would rather see a Carp but there you go

Put more fish in.

If only you knew how expensive it is to stock a lake, fish like Tench in particular are ridiculously expensive to buy

Otters can be kept out with rather in-expensive electric fencing in most cases

Saying most cases is wholey inaccurate, in some cases it's practical but many cases it isn't. Do you know how much it costs to fence a 20acre lake? you are probably talking in the region of £20,000. As i've stated before there are only a handful of fisheries that actually make money from angling, the vast majority of lakes are on a lease from a farmer/landowner and are just charging membership fee's to get by.

On the issue of fence funding, I received a reply from the EA but it was very wooly. the said there may be funding available but nothing concrete.

[vole-woman]

So worth pursuing.

[Lincs Yellowbelly]

Originally Posted by vole-woman

So worth pursuing.

I'm going to try and get the club to look into it

[Endrick]

Otters are really plentiful here in Scotland. There are many more than people realise even in the urban areas. They cause little fuss amongst fishermen - certainly not to the same extent that they do in some parts of England.

One of our local people however would cheerfully have shot them after her prized Koi carp were left prettily around her garden each with a couple of bites out of them - whether this was a parent teaching cubs to hunt or not I don't know!

I digress.

So what is the difference?

I think it's because there are fewer "magnets" for them - heavily stocked waters which require to be stocked heavily to cater for huge numbers of anglers who have hardly any water. After all our waterways have been absolutely hammered by the growth in population and industry over the past few centuries.

Predators will always search out easy prey and I can't imagine much easier prey than a stocked coarse fishery.

So we have increasing numbers of a wild creature in a largely artificial environment - i.e the England of the 21st century.

I'm all for a countryside that can naturally sustain a huge and diverse population of wild creatures. The question must inevitably be asked who is to pay the price? Are we to accept that these creatures - not having sufficient food - are reliant on artificially stocked waters and that the people who stock them are the people who have to pay for the otters survival?

[nigel_b]

You've got to figure which buttons to press lincs. There's funding available and you need to find out specifically what it is for. Without revealing too much detail I am intimately associated with an organisation that has received £650,000 funding in the last 12 months by understanding which buttons to press. In your case the money would appear to be there, you've got to figure how to release it in your direction.