For the introduction of non-lethal means of control of the Otter

[steve2]

Then what does a healthy otter population result from?

I assume it is from the EA continuously stocking river to make up for missing fish, Otter raids on stocked ponds and garden ponds.

I said at the time, and I'll repeat it here, I truly believe that this petition has shown anglers, in general, in a rather poor light . . . .

I still don't understand why this should be when we are trying to protect the environment for all animals. I saw a programme the other night where Otters were trying to find a way into a Beaver Lodge in Scotland in order to eat the babies. They failed and went on to eat some other animal.

 

[nottskev]

I was a bit concerned about where our rivers were heading, but now that the government has reminded me that otters ".... are an important indicator of the great strides we have made in improving our waterways, with more than 5,300 miles of rivers being improved since 2010. " I'm reassured. I understand the next official response will demonstrate that they are also a sign of strong economic recovery. :wh

 

[Peter Jacobs]

That seems to bother you quite a bit Peter I don't understand why, the majority of the public couldn't give a toss about anglers or fish they are led by the nose to believe whatever they are told by programmes like springwatch.

I don't care what the public think of angling or anglers.

I am concerned Graham because in the court of public opinion us anglers appear as a rat tag bunch who would harm otters, and that the man on the Clapham omnibus could care less if we were allowed to continue to pursue or sport unaffected.


You yourself seem to understand this when you say that they will be led by the nose by programmes such as Springwatch, who seem to totally ally themselves with the Otter . . . .

 

[thecrow]

I am concerned Graham because in the court of public opinion us anglers appear as a rat tag bunch who would harm otters, and that the man on the Clapham omnibus could care less if we were allowed to continue to pursue or sport unaffected.


You yourself seem to understand this when you say that they will be led by the nose by programmes such as Springwatch, who seem to totally ally themselves with the Otter . . . .

I couldn't give one jot what the man on a bus thinks, perhaps he will be happy when angling is banned and then moves on to the next big thing promoted by the BBC, has this man ever thought that without anglers and( I will say although it sticks in my throat) angling organisations the otter will in the end eat itself out of prey? rivers will decline further and the EA will be even shorter of money when the fishing tax ends.

Perhaps this man will at sometime bemoan the absence of wildfowl on waters or voles, frogs but you never know he might even have a pond full of Koi carp and will change his thinking about them when he looks one morning and they are all dead.

You keep worrying about what others think of anglers if you want, me I will keep fishing when health and weather allows, just one thing I would like to ask, where is the evidence that anglers are viewed as you describe them because other than the loud minority that have been there for years with no effect I have yet to come across this attitude.

 

[The bad one]

BBC, has this man ever thought that without anglers and( I will say although it sticks in my throat) angling organisations the otter will in the end eat itself out of prey? rivers will decline further and the EA will be even shorter of money when the fishing tax ends.

You lack of understanding between predator and prey never fails to astound. So tell us where and when an apex predator ate itself out of house and home?

 

[lutra]

I couldn't give one jot what the man on a bus thinks, perhaps he will be happy when angling is banned and then moves on to the next big thing promoted by the BBC, has this man ever thought that without anglers and( I will say although it sticks in my throat) angling organisations the otter will in the end eat itself out of prey? rivers will decline further and the EA will be even shorter of money when the fishing tax ends.

Perhaps this man will at sometime bemoan the absence of wildfowl on waters or voles, frogs but you never know he might even have a pond full of Koi carp and will change his thinking about them when he looks one morning and they are all dead.

You keep worrying about what others think of anglers if you want, me I will keep fishing when health and weather allows, just one thing I would like to ask, where is the evidence that anglers are viewed as you describe them because other than the loud minority that have been there for years with no effect I have yet to come across this attitude.

Talking of evidence, I can see very little to back you up with your vendetta against otters in regards to damage to wildlife other than fish. Most of what I can find suggests the reintroduction has helped drive out mink which are a far big killer of our wildlife. So it seems Mr Ratty and his friends are delighted to have Mr otter back to share the bank with once again, just not old crow.

 

[nottskev]

You lack of understanding between predator and prey never fails to astound. So tell us where and when an apex predator ate itself out of house and home?

A predator might not need to eat itself out of house and home in order to impact disastrously on a given water. Take the case of a small tributary of a large river. In the large river, which is relatively "healthy" the scale of things can allow for predator/prey to regulate and stabilise and for fish losses to be absorbed. The small tributary is borderline in status, with just pockets of fish as it struggles to recover from its problematic history but often lapses back. Otters from the main river can explore and hunt along the tributary, visiting temporarily or occasionally, creating a new and possibly critical adverse effect on the few fish currently thriving. That's the situation as it appeared to me yesterday when I fished a local small river. Under good conditions, in several swims where chub are reliably found - they don't have much choice about where to be, given the generally shallow water with occasional pools - not a bite. Locals passing by were keen to tell me about the surprising new sightings of otters on the river. I don't see why I would be making a mistake in judging that attention from otters is something this little river can ill afford, and an otter can do plenty of damage here without eating itself out of house and home - it can simply go elsewhere, or return to the main river, leaving the situation much worse than before it came.
More broadly, I'm not altogether convinced that the argument that predators naturally self-regulate in predator/prey balance answers all the issues in play. In other areas of wildlife, for instance. A few years ago, in an area where, for all the mature gardens and apparently suitable habitat, garden birds are scarce, we started to see huge gangs of young and "teenage" magpies. Eggs and nestlings came under unprecedented pressure, and the garden bird population, several years on, is still minimal. It may recover in time, but we live, and fish, in the here-and-now. When we had the warm winters of the mid and late 90's, young swan survival rates went up, and we had big groups of juvenile swans completely denuding a small local river for vegetation, until they moved on to look for something else. When we have so many areas where fish are apparently struggling to thrive, you don't have to be ignorant about the relations between predators and prey to have legitimate concerns about the arrival on the scene of new and possibly short-lived and opportunistic predators whose effect in particular and specific instances cannot be written off as a sign of how our rivers are improving.
Predators and prey may naturally self-regulate in textbooks; but our reality, with all its man-made influences, historic and present, is no textbook. I'm conscious we need to try and understand the bigger picture. I'm very happy to live in a city where peregrine falcons live off city-centre pigeons. Seems to be self-regulating nicely. Equally, I'm very unhappy that a barely viable small river is now being visited by otters. Not all environmental problems can be solved by "leaving it to nature", and not all interventions are misguided.

 

[thecrow]

Very sensible post, my only problem with it was the quoting of another post from someone on my ignore list because of rudeness and thinking they know it all which they clearly don't, no one does.

 

[The bad one]

Very sensible post, my only problem with it was the quoting of another post from someone on my ignore list because of rudeness and thinking they know it all which they clearly don't, no one does.

I know a dammed site more than you could ever know you ****! So answer the question as you've clearly see it. :baby:As to rudeness you'd know all about that...... As there's none more rude to people than you!

 

[nottskev]

This short National Geographic video has an interesting angle on the role of the apex predator. The re-introduction of the wolf, it's claimed, caused a reaction down the chain which eventually benefited the rivers! The context is entirely different, but it's still interesting.

This Will Shatter Your View of Apex Predators: How Wolves Change Rivers – National Geographic Blog

 

[tigger]

You lack of understanding between predator and prey never fails to astound. So tell us where and when an apex predator ate itself out of house and home?

Sorry Phil but i'm a predator of PIES and have just noticed the fridge is empty of PIES !
Gonn'a nip to the shops and hunt down some PIES to re stock the larders .

Obviously predators can eat themselves out of house and home LOL.

 

[The bad one]

A predator might not need to eat itself out of house and home in order to impact disastrously on a given water. Take the case of a small tributary of a large river. In the large river, which is relatively "healthy" the scale of things can allow for predator/prey to regulate and stabilise and for fish losses to be absorbed. The small tributary is borderline in status, with just pockets of fish as it struggles to recover from its problematic history but often lapses back. Otters from the main river can explore and hunt along the tributary, visiting temporarily or occasionally, creating a new and possibly critical adverse effect on the few fish currently thriving. That's the situation as it appeared to me yesterday when I fished a local small river. Under good conditions, in several swims where chub are reliably found - they don't have much choice about where to be, given the generally shallow water with occasional pools - not a bite. Locals passing by were keen to tell me about the surprising new sightings of otters on the river. I don't see why I would be making a mistake in judging that attention from otters is something this little river can ill afford, and an otter can do plenty of damage here without eating itself out of house and home - it can simply go elsewhere, or return to the main river, leaving the situation much worse than before it came.
More broadly, I'm not altogether convinced that the argument that predators naturally self-regulate in predator/prey balance answers all the issues in play. In other areas of wildlife, for instance. A few years ago, in an area where, for all the mature gardens and apparently suitable habitat, garden birds are scarce, we started to see huge gangs of young and "teenage" magpies. Eggs and nestlings came under unprecedented pressure, and the garden bird population, several years on, is still minimal. It may recover in time, but we live, and fish, in the here-and-now. When we had the warm winters of the mid and late 90's, young swan survival rates went up, and we had big groups of juvenile swans completely denuding a small local river for vegetation, until they moved on to look for something else. When we have so many areas where fish are apparently struggling to thrive, you don't have to be ignorant about the relations between predators and prey to have legitimate concerns about the arrival on the scene of new and possibly short-lived and opportunistic predators whose effect in particular and specific instances cannot be written off as a sign of how our rivers are improving.
Predators and prey may naturally self-regulate in textbooks; but our reality, with all its man-made influences, historic and present, is no textbook. I'm conscious we need to try and understand the bigger picture. I'm very happy to live in a city where peregrine falcons live off city-centre pigeons. Seems to be self-regulating nicely. Equally, I'm very unhappy that a barely viable small river is now being visited by otters. Not all environmental problems can be solved by "leaving it to nature", and not all interventions are misguided.

So you've see many carcasses of half eaten fish then on this river? How many sawbills and cormorants visit the river on a daily basis then? Did somebody else fish those swims the day before you did? Do the fish migrate into the main river and congregate at a given area, at a given time, as they do on the R. Dee and many other rivers? Has there been a slight pollution, deoxygenating the water not enough to kill fish but make them ill and off their food? Happens a lot on barely viable rivers does this situation. Shallow rivers are impacted greater than any rivers to changes in air and water temperatures which stops fish feeding.
There could be many factors that have impacted on why you didn't catch yesterday in what 'you' considered perfect conditions other than otters have eaten all the fish. Unless and until you have ruled out and disproved them, it's jumping to opinionated conclusions much as the Crow does.

Otters like all other apex predators work on an energy budget and catch per unit effort Scenario, which is hard wired into them. It's why they have huge territories which they defend to the death if needs be. The fact that one or two locals have told you they've seen an otter on the river doesn't mean it’s a regular visitor or permanent resident. The problem with the general public is Chinese Whispers on issues like this. One person has a once in a lifetime encounter with wildlife and it grows into a monster of everybody has seen it as the tail get told and passed down the line. Usually when you really backtrack it, it’s only one person that has seen it.
An example for you 12 months ago, we had a badger coming in our park ever night, very, very rare this, never before in my lifetime have I seen or has anyone else reported seeing a badger in the park and probable the last time one was, was at least 150 years ago. This park is as the Crow flies, one and half miles from the centre of the City of Manchester. Hardly a conducive environment for badgers to thrive are the concrete streets of the inner city.
As I look after the park and it’s wildlife, monitoring it on a daily basis and have done for well over 30 years, I can say with “some” certainty what gets in it and when… Eat you heart out Mr Crow I am that much of a smart arse! :fish:
The badger was hit by a car and died of its injuries by the side of the road on the 12[SUP]th[/SUP] of June last year. As many people in the community know me and know what I do re the park and it’s wildlife they are still telling me about the badger coming in the park. Only when I drill down into what they are telling me, do I discover it’s the same badger they are talking about. Moral is, ask as many pertinent questions about the stories the general public are telling you to establish when, where and how many they’ve really seen!
Magpies as I think you know are omnivores not predators and therefore the story has little relevance visa via apex predators.

And textbooks, and the research that has gone into them hasn’t been done in the real and present world then? Or are you coping the Gove defence on this one……. Experts, experts what do they know about anything?

 

[The bad one]

This short National Geographic video has an interesting angle on the role of the apex predator. The re-introduction of the wolf, it's claimed, caused a reaction down the chain which eventually benefited the rivers! The context is entirely different, but it's still interesting.

This Will Shatter Your View of Apex Predators: How Wolves Change Rivers – National Geographic Blog

Was aware of this video voiced by George Joshua Richard Monbiot "And the Wolves ate some of the deer" Emphasis on “some” They also ate "some" of the North American Bison which also impacted on the Ecosystem for the better.

 

[mikench]

Great video Kev! I was aware of the effect on rivers, other wildlife and flora and fauna by wolves in Yellowstone! I believe there has been a similar effect in Yosemite , the Cascades and elsewhere! There are too many deer in the uk and with no natural predators culling is a necessity! Fascinating though non the less and hardly believable!

 

[The bad one]

Sorry Phil but i'm a predator of PIES and have just noticed the fridge is empty of PIES !
Gonn'a nip to the shops and hunt down some PIES to re stock the larders .

Obviously predators can eat themselves out of house and home LOL.

You're just an animal from Wigan and as the chant goes, "who ate all the pies..................." It ends you fat ...... Or is it you'll be a fat ..............

 

[thecrow]

I enjoyed that Kev thank you, its only when man interferes that things go wrong and otters were reintroduced at a time when they were recovering on their own more interference from man.

 

[mikench]

The tree huggers regard herbivores as benign and carnivores( except otters!!!) as destructive when nothing could be further from the truth! Browsers and grazers need predators to keep them in check! We might not like the act of predation but that's nature for you!

 

[nottskev]

So you've see many carcasses of half eaten fish then on this river? How many sawbills and cormorants visit the river on a daily basis then? Did somebody else fish those swims the day before you did? Do the fish migrate into the main river and congregate at a given area, at a given time, as they do on the R. Dee and many other rivers? Has there been a slight pollution, deoxygenating the water not enough to kill fish but make them ill and off their food? Happens a lot on barely viable rivers does this situation. Shallow rivers are impacted greater than any rivers to changes in air and water temperatures which stops fish feeding.
There could be many factors that have impacted on why you didn't catch yesterday in what 'you' considered perfect conditions other than otters have eaten all the fish. Unless and until you have ruled out and disproved them, it's jumping to opinionated conclusions much as the Crow does.

Otters like all other apex predators work on an energy budget and catch per unit effort Scenario, which is hard wired into them. It's why they have huge territories which they defend to the death if needs be. The fact that one or two locals have told you they've seen an otter on the river doesn't mean it’s a regular visitor or permanent resident. The problem with the general public is Chinese Whispers on issues like this. One person has a once in a lifetime encounter with wildlife and it grows into a monster of everybody has seen it as the tail get told and passed down the line. Usually when you really backtrack it, it’s only one person that has seen it.
An example for you 12 months ago, we had a badger coming in our park ever night, very, very rare this, never before in my lifetime have I seen or has anyone else reported seeing a badger in the park and probable the last time one was, was at least 150 years ago. This park is as the Crow flies, one and half miles from the centre of the City of Manchester. Hardly a conducive environment for badgers to thrive are the concrete streets of the inner city.
As I look after the park and it’s wildlife, monitoring it on a daily basis and have done for well over 30 years, I can say with “some” certainty what gets in it and when… Eat you heart out Mr Crow I am that much of a smart arse! :fish:
The badger was hit by a car and died of its injuries by the side of the road on the 12[SUP]th[/SUP] of June last year. As many people in the community know me and know what I do re the park and it’s wildlife they are still telling me about the badger coming in the park. Only when I drill down into what they are telling me, do I discover it’s the same badger they are talking about. Moral is, ask as many pertinent questions about the stories the general public are telling you to establish when, where and how many they’ve really seen!
Magpies as I think you know are omnivores not predators and therefore the story has little relevance visa via apex predators.

And textbooks, and the research that has gone into them hasn’t been done in the real and present world then? Or are you coping the Gove defence on this one……. Experts, experts what do they know about anything?

Your first paragraph accuses me of failing to entertain a number of plausible reasons why I might not have caught yesterday, and of concluding, like some noddy that started fishing yesterday, that "otters have eaten all the fish". This gift for combining a browbeating, patronising manner with less than forensic reading skills is quite outstanding. My post actually referred to otters possibly having an adverse effect on the few fish present, (read it and see) and, as is widely known, the presence of an apex predator can, alongside the terminal effect on those eaten, cause surviving prey to adopt new habits, such as spending more time in seeking shelter and concealment rather than in seeking food. I entertained the idea that the fish might have been driven to vacate some of their usual places. You seem inclined to misread what's actually posted in order to set up an attack on the poster for being short-sighted. Any irony there?

Later on, you take my point that locals who walk the banks daily spontaneously reported their first otter sightings when they stopped to talk to me, and twist it into an illustration of the psychology of rumour, so once again we are all credulous idiots in our own backyards, whilst you enjoy synoptic vision from 100 miles away. I think the debate in this thread and others like it is interesting, and it doesn't bother me that people hold different views. But the "voice of science" speaks more persuasively when it's not full of aggressive rhetorical bombast, and recognises that nobody has the monopoly on intelligence.

 

[tigger]

You're just an animal from Wigan and as the chant goes, "who ate all the pies..................." It ends you fat ...... Or is it you'll be a fat ..............

You know me Phil, not fat bud.....but keep trying lol.

 

[thecrow]

Later on, you take my point that locals who walk the banks daily spontaneously reported their first otter sightings when they stopped to talk to me, and twist it into an illustration of the psychology of rumour, so once again we are all credulous idiots in our own backyards, whilst you enjoy synoptic vision from 100 miles away. I think the debate in this thread and others like it is interesting, and it doesn't bother me that people hold different views. But the "voice of science" speaks more persuasively when it's not full of aggressive rhetorical bombast, and recognises that nobody has the monopoly on intelligence.

Waste of time Kev when someone resorts to rudeness and name calling when anyone dare's have an opinion different to his, the user name really fits doesn't it. I actually feel sorry for anyone that cant enter a debate with reasoned argument without feeling that they are so superior to others that they feel the need to twist words and insult others with a different view to their own.

I doubt he even knows the place you mention but is so far ahead of everyone else he knows all about what goes on there, good grief he must be super human

Unsurprisingly he stay's on my ignore list (a list of just 2 both equally rude.)