The good news is we saw several fresh spraints which vary considerably in form, from what looks like a blackish bird splat to a much more formed tube. Shiny! Because of an oily anal jelly (
) which helps protect the otters gut from fish bones. Their poo smells, counterintuitively and even bizarrely, like fresh hay! I mean, what does that say about an otter’s microbiome?
We also saw an otter path which headed straight over a field and railway line from the river to a distant rhyne (drainage ditch) which the otters use as byways.
The bad news is that otters are in serious peril. A large percentage of them get run over. To navigate their increasingly barriered habitat they have to cross roads, even the M5! Apparently the offset measures like tunnels are just not funded any more.
Plus, unsurprisingly, pollution. Toxicity builds up in apex predators like otters and because they live in the water courses they get probably the worst of it.
