Otters - when will they ever learn !

beer enigma

Not sure if any of you ever venture across to Norfolk, but its always been a favourite fishing destination of mine for holidays - some huge Pike...but !!

Anglian waterways decided that the otter population was in danger, so introduced them to the Broads last year & the place is devoid of fish !.

My brother lives waterside & fishing has just dried up for them - I was there for some winter Piking & hardly a bite - the lack of small fish has just driven the Pike elsewhere.

I thought this quote summed it up..

"A small group of otters will hopefully become familiar faces at a Norfolk tourist attraction"

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I wonder how many otters were introduced? Surely there are more factors causing the lack of fish........correct me if im wrong!

beer enigma

Otters take huge territories & tend to be very hungry - maybe its a coincidence, but the drop off in fishing occurred at the same time as the introduction.

just a shame they cant build more of a wildlife habitat to encourage them than letting them just loose

coolwings

In the Thurne system coarse fish spawning is limited.
Also both on the Thurne and on the broads periodic fish deaths occur from primnesium and salt water intrusion, so coarse fish numbers were always lower than popular expectations.
That's by the way the reason for the larger fish sizes there, less competition for the available food among the remaining fish.
I may get corrected for this but I think that much of the broadlands fish populations also move into the river channels for substantial periods during the year.
The straightened canal like character of those rivers provide little or no cover from mammal predator activity.

Fewer fish numbers, no cover from an efficient predator, reduced ability to make good the losses at spawning time .... a very predictable outcome unfortunately.
It was predicted too, by certain very well known anglers who frequent the area and write in angling media, but their expressed views were not considered.

1 for otters; 0 for pike anglers.
It might be a fair result considering the deal the otters have elsewhere.

stevenmu

Is it possible that the reason otters were not present naturally is because there wasn't the fish stock available to support them?


(I know otters have been under pressure for other reasons, but I wonder how much thought was put into the availability of an ample food source before they were introduced)

Doc Farrell

how can they clean out an area of tens of thousands of coarse fish but i saw an adult otter in the dodder last year in a spot that still has plenty of brown trout?

coolwings

Doc Farrell wrote: »

how can they clean out an area of tens of thousands of coarse fish but i saw an adult otter in the dodder last year in a spot that still has plenty of brown trout?

There never was thousands of coarse fish, just dozens and maybe a bit more of large coarse fish, and lots of empty water. Now more of the water is empty.

snow ghost

The West Coast of Ireland probably has the highest otter population in Britain or Ireland - especially considering they were never really adversely affected or threatened here - and the fishing is some of the best in Britain or Ireland.

So I'm not convinced there is a correlation between the reintroduction of otters and a major decline in fish.

coolwings

There is always a balance between the number of predators and their prey.
If the numbers of predators increases the prey will decline.
Then the predator with excessive numbers (for the situation prevailing) either succombs to starvation or moves onto another prey species, or migrates.
After that the prey multiply back and it begins again.

The balance is not a static number - it is a cycle, like a sine wave. When man does not interfere the sine wave is very flat, increasing only in a very dry or very wet or extremely cold year.
When a big change is imposed from outside it is a wild oscilation.
You could say that the numbers of fish were artificially high before the reintroduction of otters, or possibly too many were released in one place.
If the otters on the broads move it will be telling the people who put them there something, but they will not understand. Their actions already show there are natural matters they do not understand.
But no long lasting harm is done. The fish grow back in time. The otters find a place to live in time. Their numbers will match the prey fish numbers in time.

beer enigma

snow ghost wrote: »

The West Coast of Ireland probably has the highest otter population in Britain or Ireland - especially considering they were never really adversely affected or threatened here - and the fishing is some of the best in Britain or Ireland.

So I'm not convinced there is a correlation between the reintroduction of otters and a major decline in fish.

Maybe I'm uninformed, but I've been fishing for 32 years & have fished the Broads at least once a year for the past 20 years, the decline has been dramatic this last year & correlates exactly to the timescale of the otters being introduced.

As Coolwings says, the balance will return, but the damage/cost in terms of angling is potentially huge.

snow ghost

Andip wrote: »

Maybe I'm uninformed, but I've been fishing for 32 years & have fished the Broads at least once a year for the past 20 years, the decline has been dramatic this last year & correlates exactly to the timescale of the otters being introduced.

As Coolwings says, the balance will return, but the damage/cost in terms of angling is potentially huge.

Andip, I hear what you're saying, although as someone else pointed out earlier it could probably be more complex than introduction of the otters. For example, could the adverse weather have contributed to this perhaps?

Otters are native species and have lived sustainably with fish stocks for thousands of years in these islands before human pollution, etc, threatened them.

That said perhaps if the fish stocks were unnnaturaly low anyway, the introduction of the otters may have adversely affected this, in this initial phase, but as pointed out this will balance out. It is not in an otter's interest to devour every last fish in a system or it would have no future. I'm sure by instinct they know this.

The good thing is that otters can't live in the pollution that also affect fish, and consequently angling, so ironically if otters are there the fish are also likely to have more of a long term chance.

A bit like the reintroduction of Golden Eagles in Donegal, there was a knee jerk reaction that they were eating lambs, and some of the Eagles were posioned.

beer enigma

Maybe Snow Ghost - I'd like to keep an open mind on it.

I don't think the weather has impacted tho to be honest as some of the best Pike fishing I've had has been during the coldest of snaps over the years.