Writing in his local Milton Keynes Chronicle Trev observed:
‘Anglers may have been out of luck, but otters have been making a killing on the Newport Ouse. No less than five ‘ottered’ barbel – with their throat-stomach areas ripped out in tell-tale style – have been found dragged up the banks during the cold snap.
Four of them, part of the river’s brood stock and which won’t now be breeding this spring, were five to six-pounders and the other a decent double.
Evidence of otter kills had abated since its 2008 peak – when the British record barbel ‘the Traveller’ and other Adams Mill biggies met grisly ends – possibly because the barbel population had been decimated in the initial onslaught.
But the sudden cold spell would have sent most crayfish, otters’ main food, into riverbank burrows and left barbel, which can go almost comatose in low temperatures, as easy targets.
Newport committee man Dave Tebbutt said:
“The saddest part is these are just the bodies we have found. Five otters where seen in one area by an angler back in November. If they carry on like this I give it three years max before the river is devoid of barbel.”
Not only river fish are under threat. Lower downstream otters looking for easy pickings have been wreaking havoc among big carp and bream on riverside pits.’
