Young otters safe and sound in caring hands

The pups – a male and a female – were believed to be about 10 weeks old and were both in good health. They were rescued on December 15, when residents of the village of Norton heard the little female calling loudly from a front garden.

Katie Blackburn, of the Battleflatts veterinary practice in Stamford Bridge, was called to the scene and managed to scoop up the pup in a towel. The young otter was then taken to local wildlife expert Jean Thorpe, who runs Ryedale Rehabilitation from her home at Norton.

"She settled into a warm pen, but an hour later she was calling loudly and making me feel uneasy," says Jean. "I boxed her up and drove to where she was caught. I sat in the cold hoping her calling would attract her mother, but no.

"I then drove to a nearby garage where the pup had first been seen and waited quietly there. As soon as I stopped the car I could hear another otter calling, and not far away.

"The little female began to whistle loudly, and the two otters called out long and loud to each other. I hoped the other otter would approach, but the sound got no nearer. So I began to think it was another pup, and sibling to the little female in the box."

After much searching and listening, Jean located the young dog otter in a nearby skate park close to the River Derwent and the railway line.

"Their meeting was a joy to see and they remained wrapped around each other on the journey home. They ate well over night and settled down together under a heat lamp.

"I suspect that a car had hit the mother, or that the pups had been washed down the swollen river. The calls of the pups were loud and insistent, so I'm sure their mother would have got to them if

she could."

England's otters were decimated 50 years ago, mainly by pesticide pollution, which has since been tackled, but also by destruction of their favoured habitats. In many parts of the country they vanished altogether. Hunting them was outlawed in 1978 and otters and their holts, or resting sites, have been protected since 1981 by the Wildlife and Countryside Act.

Although Jean Stead believes that the otter population is now thriving across North Yorkshire, particularly in the clean waters of the River Derwent, she fears that traffic is one of the biggest threats to otters in the Malton area.

There are frequent otter sightings in the vicinity where the cubs were found and four adults and two pups have already been killed by vehicles on nearby roads.

"Sadly, since flood defence work was carried out, the stream that the otters travel up has had a gate fitted on it so they can't get to the Derwent by water," adds Jean. "Instead, they have to cross two busy roads and the railway line. I regularly receive reports from people of otters being sighted on the roads and the railway line, so it's a real worry."

After spending a few days in Jean's care, the two young otters were handed over to the Otter Trust in the New Forest, where they will remain until they are old enough to be released in North Yorkshire in the spring of 2011.

According to the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, the Eurasion otter (Lutra lutra) is chocolate brown in colour with a paler throat and belly. An adult male otter can weigh up to 10kg and be over one metre long. Usually only its head, and possibly its tail, shows on the surface as it swims.

The otter is often nocturnal and usually very wary of humans. They can breed at any time of year but often have cubs in spring and late autumn, usually between one and three, which start to learn to swim and hunt at 16 weeks. That takes them 13-15 months, learning from the mother.

They live on and around rivers, lakes, marshes, wet woodland, reedbeds and some coastal areas and prefer clean water.

A male (dog) otter's territory can include up to 40km of waterways in which live several females. The male travels the area regularly, territorially scent marking.

Otter droppings, spraint, are left in prominent places on logs, boulders, ledges under bridges, tree roots, beside weirs and on grass tussocks. They are black and tar like or green when fresh, have a rough texture full of fish bones and scales with a not unpleasant

sweet smell.

Their five-toe footprints are are up to 7cm long, with webbing between the toes and the claws may show up. They mainly eat fish and occasionally take small mammals, birds, amphibians and crustaceans.

They are relatively solitary animals, only coming together to mate between 17 and 20 months.

They communicate using birdlike sounds like whistling and twittering.

They also use spraint to relay information on sex, age and even individual identification to other otters.

This year will see the final fruits of the UK Biodiversity Action Plan which was launched by the Government in 1997.

It set the target of re-restablishing otters in all the UK rivers and coastal areas they were inhabiting in the 1960s by 2010.