The Pikers Pit

vnb;'./

AndyFrost wrote:

Martin , the do gooders will tell you what they would like you to know. Their territory figures are nowhere near what they would try and have you believe , down here it's not unusual to see families of them less than TWO miles apart.

Andy.

That says nothing about the size of territories Andy as territorial boundaries must touch somewhere.

Cheers Alan

cookiesdaughtersdad wrote:

AndyFrost wrote:

Martin , the do gooders will tell you what they would like you to know. Their territory figures are nowhere near what they would try and have you believe , down here it's not unusual to see families of them less than TWO miles apart.

Andy.

That says nothing about the size of territories Andy as territorial boundaries must touch somewhere.

Cheers Alan

Did Google lead you to that.

Andy

AndyFrost wrote:

cookiesdaughtersdad wrote:

AndyFrost wrote:

Martin , the do gooders will tell you what they would like you to know. Their territory figures are nowhere near what they would try and have you believe , down here it's not unusual to see families of them less than TWO miles apart.

Andy.

That says nothing about the size of territories Andy as territorial boundaries must touch somewhere.

Cheers Alan

Did Google lead you to that.

Andy

No googling was done in the production of the above post as it fecking obvious

Cheers Alan

Alan , I was merely pointing out that so called official territory figures cannot be believed , I could count on you to pick an arguement on that.

Andy.

AndyFrost wrote:

Alan , I was merely pointing out that so called official territory figures cannot be believed , I could count on you to pick an arguement on that.

Andy.

it does seem strange that some give figures such as 20 km of river per otter----then you find your bivvy surrounded by half a dozen of the bloody things at night (on the Broads).

AndyFrost wrote:

Alan , I was merely pointing out that so called official territory figures cannot be believed , I could count on you to pick an arguement on that.

Andy.

No one is trying to pick an argument here Andy, but your reference to me googling my statement/answer is sh1t leading me to think you want one, so do ya, want one?
If you saw two otters that does not mean otter numbers are two per square yard

Cheers Alan

cookiesdaughtersdad wrote:

AndyFrost wrote:

Alan , I was merely pointing out that so called official territory figures cannot be believed , I could count on you to pick an arguement on that.

Andy.

No one is trying to pick an argument here Andy, but your reference to me googling my statement/answer is sh1t leading me to think you want one, so do ya, want one?
If you saw two otters that does not mean otter numbers are two per square yard

Cheers Alan

Bob Hope and No Hope

Andy

AndyFrost wrote:

cookiesdaughtersdad wrote:

AndyFrost wrote:

Alan , I was merely pointing out that so called official territory figures cannot be believed , I could count on you to pick an arguement on that.

Andy.

No one is trying to pick an argument here Andy, but your reference to me googling my statement/answer is sh1t leading me to think you want one, so do ya, want one?
If you saw two otters that does not mean otter numbers are two per square yard

Cheers Alan

Bob Hope and No Hope

Andy

Cheers Alan

cookiesdaughtersdad wrote:

If you saw two otters that does not mean otter numbers are two per square yard

Cheers Alan

of course it doesn't , but it does tell me that the tripe you read on Google and suchlike regarding so called territories is to say the very least misleading. Sadly a high percentage of the ill informed believe it.

Andy.

AndyFrost wrote:

cookiesdaughtersdad wrote:

If you saw two otters that does not mean otter numbers are two per square yard

Cheers Alan

of course it doesn't , but it does tell me that the tripe you read on Google and suchlike regarding so called territories is to say the very least misleading. Sadly a high percentage of the ill informed believe it.

Andy.

Andy, I don't know how they know the territory size of otters, do they DNA sample otter spraints (I wish they would just call them poo ) or radio collars because the fleeting glimpse you often get of them would make physical recognition impossible.
Although I believe otter numbers are the higher now than they have been for hundreds of years, they are no longer hunted, I do believe that given time, things will balance out, nature does not design creatures that empty their own larder.
If an otter require about 2lb of fish per day, the size of its territory needs to be big enough in terms of acreage so fish stocks or biomass in any given place will in the "long term" be unaffected by otter predation. Of course there will initially be a change in stocks and we are all aware of what happened at Adams Mill but that was a man made situation of a small river with a few outsized fish but of course there are still fish there with at least one now hungrier otter.
An otter's territory will then depend on factors such as fish stock density and importantly as I said acreage of water, so just to say that an otter territory is so many miles long is incorrect. Otters living along sections of the Trend that has the odd gravel pit will need less linear miles of river than an otter living along the Upper great Ouse for example and some still waters are big enough on their own to support them.

Cheers Alan

cookiesdaughtersdad wrote:

AndyFrost wrote:

cookiesdaughtersdad wrote:

If you saw two otters that does not mean otter numbers are two per square yard

Cheers Alan

of course it doesn't , but it does tell me that the tripe you read on Google and suchlike regarding so called territories is to say the very least misleading. Sadly a high percentage of the ill informed believe it.

Andy.

Andy, I don't know how they know the territory size of otters, do they DNA sample otter spraints (I wish they would just call them poo ) or radio collars because the fleeting glimpse you often get of them would make physical recognition impossible.
Although I believe otter numbers are the higher now than they have been for hundreds of years, they are no longer hunted, I do believe that given time, things will balance out, nature does not design creatures that empty their own larder.
If an otter require about 2lb of fish per day, the size of its territory needs to be big enough in terms of acreage so fish stocks or biomass in any given place will in the "long term" be unaffected by otter predation. Of course there will initially be a change in stocks and we are all aware of what happened at Adams Mill but that was a man made situation of a small river with a few outsized fish but of course there are still fish there with at least one now hungrier otter.
An otter's territory will then depend on factors such as fish stock density and importantly as I said acreage of water, so just to say that an otter territory is so many miles long is incorrect. Otters living along sections of the Trend that has the odd gravel pit will need less linear miles of river than an otter living along the Upper great Ouse for example and some still waters are big enough on their own to support them.

Cheers Alan

then it will eat 2lb of fish a day----and leave the other 20lb rotting on the bank

Kev Berry wrote:

cookiesdaughtersdad wrote:

AndyFrost wrote:

cookiesdaughtersdad wrote:

If you saw two otters that does not mean otter numbers are two per square yard

Cheers Alan

of course it doesn't , but it does tell me that the tripe you read on Google and suchlike regarding so called territories is to say the very least misleading. Sadly a high percentage of the ill informed believe it.

Andy.

Andy, I don't know how they know the territory size of otters, do they DNA sample otter spraints (I wish they would just call them poo ) or radio collars because the fleeting glimpse you often get of them would make physical recognition impossible.
Although I believe otter numbers are the higher now than they have been for hundreds of years, they are no longer hunted, I do believe that given time, things will balance out, nature does not design creatures that empty their own larder.
If an otter require about 2lb of fish per day, the size of its territory needs to be big enough in terms of acreage so fish stocks or biomass in any given place will in the "long term" be unaffected by otter predation. Of course there will initially be a change in stocks and we are all aware of what happened at Adams Mill but that was a man made situation of a small river with a few outsized fish but of course there are still fish there with at least one now hungrier otter.
An otter's territory will then depend on factors such as fish stock density and importantly as I said acreage of water, so just to say that an otter territory is so many miles long is incorrect. Otters living along sections of the Trend that has the odd gravel pit will need less linear miles of river than an otter living along the Upper great Ouse for example and some still waters are big enough on their own to support them.

Cheers Alan

then it will eat 2lb of fish a day----and leave the other 20lb rotting on the bank

The "Traveler" was found dead after being "Ottered" and still weighed over 20lbs

Cheers Alan

Know of a mate who caught two otters in traps on a south Cambridgeshire pit. Let's just say they wasn't released.
Bloody otters are everywhere now, two waters close to me have otter problems. One is having to spend thousands on fencing and the other is too vast to fence off.

Piker Nick wrote:

Know of a mate who caught two otters in traps on a south Cambridgeshire pit. Let's just say they wasn't released.

Do they make good pets?

Piker Nick wrote:

Know of a mate who caught two otters in traps on a south Cambridgeshire pit. Let's just say they wasn't released.
Bloody otters are everywhere now, two waters close to me have otter problems. One is having to spend thousands on fencing and the other is too vast to fence off.

Hi Nick, personally I am a big fan of otters, b e a utiful creatures that are indigenous to our waterways and were only wiped out from many places because of man's chemicals, it is just such a shame that because of a few reasons that are generally man made, they now come into direct conflict with angling and in particular specimen angling.
Otters are a protected species and so I think it is unwise to talk about harming them in any way

Cheers Alan

cookiesdaughtersdad wrote:

Piker Nick wrote:

Know of a mate who caught two otters in traps on a south Cambridgeshire pit. Let's just say they wasn't released.
Bloody otters are everywhere now, two waters close to me have otter problems. One is having to spend thousands on fencing and the other is too vast to fence off.

Hi Nick, personally I am a big fan of otters, b e a utiful creatures that are indigenous to our waterways and were only wiped out from many places because of man's chemicals, it is just such a shame that because of a few reasons that are generally man made, they now come into direct conflict with angling and in particular specimen angling.
Otters are a protected species and so I think it is unwise to talk about harming them in any way

Cheers Alan

what a lot of people don't know Alan is that the otter hunts voluntarily took it upon themselves to stop hunting them because they were getting so scarce---- years before the hunting with dogs act----everyone blamed the hunts for their demise and wouldn't listen to them saying it was the water killing them.
The same bad water is probably behind the otters turning to eating specimen fish----eels are apparently their favoured food, and there aint many of em in the rivers.
It would be good to know what the population of otters was before the chemicals started killing them off.

Kev Berry wrote:

cookiesdaughtersdad wrote:

Piker Nick wrote:

Know of a mate who caught two otters in traps on a south Cambridgeshire pit. Let's just say they wasn't released.
Bloody otters are everywhere now, two waters close to me have otter problems. One is having to spend thousands on fencing and the other is too vast to fence off.

Hi Nick, personally I am a big fan of otters, b e a utiful creatures that are indigenous to our waterways and were only wiped out from many places because of man's chemicals, it is just such a shame that because of a few reasons that are generally man made, they now come into direct conflict with angling and in particular specimen angling.
Otters are a protected species and so I think it is unwise to talk about harming them in any way

Cheers Alan

what a lot of people don't know Alan is that the otter hunts voluntarily took it upon themselves to stop hunting them because they were getting so scarce---- years before the hunting with dogs act----everyone blamed the hunts for their demise and wouldn't listen to them saying it was the water killing them.
The same bad water is probably behind the otters turning to eating specimen fish----eels are apparently their favoured food, and there aint many of em in the rivers.
It would be good to know what the population of otters was before the chemicals started killing them off.

See I never knew that
As I'm sure you know Kev, it was a couple of particular chemicals used in farming as pesticides that have since received worldwide bans that were the downfall of the otter. One in particular, dieldrin, was 1st launched in the late 40s and was used in high concentrations and the crash in otter numbers started.
These chemicals rise as they work up through the food chain with top predators such as birds of prey and otters getting the worst of it.
Not only did animals die, but the boys were also left infertile and with a life expectancy of around 8 years in the wild, numbers soon crashed.
It is difficult to estimate otter numbers, but I would say we have more now than we have had in hundreds of years
I often get quite, shall we say frustrated, to the attitude that many anglers have towards otters, they are blinkered towards the quarry they wish to catch and are often ignorant to the environment and other species that exist within it, not that dissimilar in attitude to the IFIs on pike

Cheers Alan

Cheers Alan

cookiesdaughtersdad wrote:

Kev Berry wrote:

cookiesdaughtersdad wrote:

Piker Nick wrote:

Know of a mate who caught two otters in traps on a south Cambridgeshire pit. Let's just say they wasn't released.
Bloody otters are everywhere now, two waters close to me have otter problems. One is having to spend thousands on fencing and the other is too vast to fence off.

Hi Nick, personally I am a big fan of otters, b e a utiful creatures that are indigenous to our waterways and were only wiped out from many places because of man's chemicals, it is just such a shame that because of a few reasons that are generally man made, they now come into direct conflict with angling and in particular specimen angling.
Otters are a protected species and so I think it is unwise to talk about harming them in any way

Cheers Alan

what a lot of people don't know Alan is that the otter hunts voluntarily took it upon themselves to stop hunting them because they were getting so scarce---- years before the hunting with dogs act----everyone blamed the hunts for their demise and wouldn't listen to them saying it was the water killing them.
The same bad water is probably behind the otters turning to eating specimen fish----eels are apparently their favoured food, and there aint many of em in the rivers.
It would be good to know what the population of otters was before the chemicals started killing them off.

See I never knew that
As I'm sure you know Kev, it was a couple of particular chemicals used in farming as pesticides that have since received worldwide bans that were the downfall of the otter. One in particular, dieldrin, was 1st launched in the late 40s and was used in high concentrations and the crash in otter numbers started.
These chemicals rise as they work up through the food chain with top predators such as birds of prey and otters getting the worst of it.
Not only did animals die, but the boys were also left infertile and with a life expectancy of around 8 years in the wild, numbers soon crashed.
It is difficult to estimate otter numbers, but I would say we have more now than we have had in hundreds of years
I often get quite, shall we say frustrated, to the attitude that many anglers have towards otters, they are blinkered towards the quarry they wish to catch and are often ignorant to the environment and other species that exist within it, not that dissimilar in attitude to the IFIs on pike

Cheers Alan

Cheers Alan

What would you do without good old Google

Andy.

AndyFrost wrote:

cookiesdaughtersdad wrote:

Kev Berry wrote:

cookiesdaughtersdad wrote:

Piker Nick wrote:

Know of a mate who caught two otters in traps on a south Cambridgeshire pit. Let's just say they wasn't released.
Bloody otters are everywhere now, two waters close to me have otter problems. One is having to spend thousands on fencing and the other is too vast to fence off.

Hi Nick, personally I am a big fan of otters, b e a utiful creatures that are indigenous to our waterways and were only wiped out from many places because of man's chemicals, it is just such a shame that because of a few reasons that are generally man made, they now come into direct conflict with angling and in particular specimen angling.
Otters are a protected species and so I think it is unwise to talk about harming them in any way

Cheers Alan

what a lot of people don't know Alan is that the otter hunts voluntarily took it upon themselves to stop hunting them because they were getting so scarce---- years before the hunting with dogs act----everyone blamed the hunts for their demise and wouldn't listen to them saying it was the water killing them.
The same bad water is probably behind the otters turning to eating specimen fish----eels are apparently their favoured food, and there aint many of em in the rivers.
It would be good to know what the population of otters was before the chemicals started killing them off.

See I never knew that
As I'm sure you know Kev, it was a couple of particular chemicals used in farming as pesticides that have since received worldwide bans that were the downfall of the otter. One in particular, dieldrin, was 1st launched in the late 40s and was used in high concentrations and the crash in otter numbers started.
These chemicals rise as they work up through the food chain with top predators such as birds of prey and otters getting the worst of it.
Not only did animals die, but the boys were also left infertile and with a life expectancy of around 8 years in the wild, numbers soon crashed.
It is difficult to estimate otter numbers, but I would say we have more now than we have had in hundreds of years
I often get quite, shall we say frustrated, to the attitude that many anglers have towards otters, they are blinkered towards the quarry they wish to catch and are often ignorant to the environment and other species that exist within it, not that dissimilar in attitude to the IFIs on pike

Cheers Alan

Cheers Alan

What would you do without good old Google

Andy.

You again

Cheers Alan

cookiesdaughtersdad wrote:

It is difficult to estimate otter numbers, but I would say we have more now than we have had in hundreds of years
I often get quite, shall we say frustrated, to the attitude that many anglers have towards otters, they are blinkered towards the quarry they wish to catch and are often ignorant to the environment and other species that exist within it, not that dissimilar in attitude to the IFIs on pike

Why do you think anglers get angry at otters when there are not only more about than in living memory but more than in hundreds of years? The fact is the world has changed and otter numbers as they stand are not supportable. Still, when they reintroduce the lynx that might change...

I'm sorry, Googlalan, but this current mania among the conservation totalitarians for returning the wildlife populations back to how they were thousands of years ago is founded on stupidity. The only way it can work is to reduce the human populations to the levels they were at whatever point in history is selected as Year One.

Otters are lovely. There are just too many of them. And they aren't restricting their diet to fish. I hear there are feint rays of hope for anglers. Early days though.

davelumb wrote:

cookiesdaughtersdad wrote:

It is difficult to estimate otter numbers, but I would say we have more now than we have had in hundreds of years
I often get quite, shall we say frustrated, to the attitude that many anglers have towards otters, they are blinkered towards the quarry they wish to catch and are often ignorant to the environment and other species that exist within it, not that dissimilar in attitude to the IFIs on pike

Why do you think anglers get angry at otters when there are not only more about than in living memory but more than in hundreds of years? The fact is the world has changed and otter numbers as they stand are not supportable. Still, when they reintroduce the lynx that might change...

I'm sorry, Googlalan, but this current mania among the conservation totalitarians for returning the wildlife populations back to how they were thousands of years ago is founded on stupidity. The only way it can work is to reduce the human populations to the levels they were at whatever point in history is selected as Year One.

Otters are lovely. There are just too many of them. And they aren't restricting their diet to fish. I hear there are feint rays of hope for anglers. Early days though.

Very well said , aided only by common sense , and not diatribe gleaned from Google.

Andy

davelumb wrote:

Why do you think anglers get angry at otters when there are not only more about than in living memory but more than in hundreds of years? The fact is the world has changed and otter numbers as they stand are not supportable. Still, when they reintroduce the lynx that might change...

I'm sorry, Googlalan, but this current mania among the conservation totalitarians for returning the wildlife populations back to how they were thousands of years ago is founded on stupidity. The only way it can work is to reduce the human populations to the levels they were at whatever point in history is selected as Year One.

Otters are lovely. There are just too many of them. And they aren't restricting their diet to fish. I hear there are feint rays of hope for anglers. Early days though.

Most concise and accurate summary of the otter debate ever....

AndyFrost wrote:

davelumb wrote:

cookiesdaughtersdad wrote:

It is difficult to estimate otter numbers, but I would say we have more now than we have had in hundreds of years
I often get quite, shall we say frustrated, to the attitude that many anglers have towards otters, they are blinkered towards the quarry they wish to catch and are often ignorant to the environment and other species that exist within it, not that dissimilar in attitude to the IFIs on pike

Why do you think anglers get angry at otters when there are not only more about than in living memory but more than in hundreds of years? The fact is the world has changed and otter numbers as they stand are not supportable. Still, when they reintroduce the lynx that might change...

I'm sorry, Googlalan, but this current mania among the conservation totalitarians for returning the wildlife populations back to how they were thousands of years ago is founded on stupidity. The only way it can work is to reduce the human populations to the levels they were at whatever point in history is selected as Year One.

Otters are lovely. There are just too many of them. And they aren't restricting their diet to fish. I hear there are feint rays of hope for anglers. Early days though.

Very well said , aided only by common sense , and not diatribe gleaned from Google.

Andy

You are now p*****g me of Andy, how I form my opinion comes from far more than google and I very much doubt you would show me such disrespect face to face

Cheers Alan

It's worth noting that 67% of statistics are made up on the spot, only 27% of people know this.

davelumb wrote:

cookiesdaughtersdad wrote:

It is difficult to estimate otter numbers, but I would say we have more now than we have had in hundreds of years
I often get quite, shall we say frustrated, to the attitude that many anglers have towards otters, they are blinkered towards the quarry they wish to catch and are often ignorant to the environment and other species that exist within it, not that dissimilar in attitude to the IFIs on pike

Why do you think anglers get angry at otters when there are not only more about than in living memory but more than in hundreds of years? The fact is the world has changed and otter numbers as they stand are not supportable. Still, when they reintroduce the lynx that might change...

I'm sorry, Googlalan, but this current mania among the conservation totalitarians for returning the wildlife populations back to how they were thousands of years ago is founded on stupidity. The only way it can work is to reduce the human populations to the levels they were at whatever point in history is selected as Year One.

Otters are lovely. There are just too many of them. And they aren't restricting their diet to fish. I hear there are feint rays of hope for anglers. Early days though.

Dave, just by the fact that otter numbers have increased to what they are today shows that their numbers are totally supportable, in places they are probably on their forth or fifth generation and their numbers will be finding a balance , animals cannot eat their larders empty and remain, its that their larders are made up of our prized fish is the only reason anglers say there are too many of them.
You dont have to be sorry for anything Mr Glum as I agree the reintroduction of otters and the proposed reintroduction of some other species is founded on stupidity and lack of vision, they just want them back because they do, the selfish motivation of people who think all furry things are cute and feck the species they eat, these species includes things like bitterns, bit of an own goal that one.
Take the Lynx for example, a while back I took an interest in this, it turns out that the proposed species is not even the one we used to have, ours was smaller and more like the Iberian lynx, this is a rabbit catching sized cat rather than the much larger dear catcher from central Europe, which also have a fondness for endangered species like the Pine Marten, now thats feckin stoopid,

Cheers Alan

cookiesdaughtersdad wrote:

Dave, just by the fact that otter numbers have increased to what they are today shows that their numbers are totally supportable, in places they are probably on their forth or fifth generation and their numbers will be finding a balance , animals cannot eat their larders empty and remain, its that their larders are made up of our prized fish is the only reason anglers say there are too many of them.

I question that their rapid spread is entirely natural because they seem to appear in places in numbers - out of the blue. They are certainly being encouraged to spread by the building of artificial holts. That's not natural.

https://www.wwt.org.uk/news/all-news/20 ... l-funding/

davelumb wrote:

cookiesdaughtersdad wrote:

Dave, just by the fact that otter numbers have increased to what they are today shows that their numbers are totally supportable, in places they are probably on their forth or fifth generation and their numbers will be finding a balance , animals cannot eat their larders empty and remain, its that their larders are made up of our prized fish is the only reason anglers say there are too many of them.

I question that their rapid spread is entirely natural because they seem to appear in places in numbers - out of the blue. They are certainly being encouraged to spread by the building of artificial holts. That's not natural.

https://www.wwt.org.uk/news/all-news/20 ... l-funding/

a friend who is "in the know" tells me there are several otter "farms" where they are bred for release. Of course NE know nothing of these.
Just before he went to live in Thailand last year he told us there were about 15 ready for release and a good supply had already been dropped in the tidal Trent.
He is an angler as well as a tree hugger and would not entertain that what was being done was wrong.
The otter trust no doubt has a deniable hand in all this.

That wouldn't surprise me in the least, Kev.

davelumb wrote:

cookiesdaughtersdad wrote:

Dave, just by the fact that otter numbers have increased to what they are today shows that their numbers are totally supportable, in places they are probably on their forth or fifth generation and their numbers will be finding a balance , animals cannot eat their larders empty and remain, its that their larders are made up of our prized fish is the only reason anglers say there are too many of them.

I question that their rapid spread is entirely natural because they seem to appear in places in numbers - out of the blue. They are certainly being encouraged to spread by the building of artificial holts. That's not natural.

https://www.wwt.org.uk/news/all-news/20 ... l-funding/

I think the whole reintroduction program was floored from the start, the environment they were to be swimming in again had changed particularly in regards to their food and in particualr to the eel which were plentiful before the otters demise.
I cant say strongly enough how important I think the eel is for our freshwater ecology, I actually think its the single most important species.
The vast majority of eels never enter fresh water but instead remain in the rich feeding areas of the estuaries, you know where the cormorant used to live.
It is said that otters feed on the whats available and of course nutritional, to which the eel used to fit both parts perfectly.
In old angling books it was said that the otter used to target course fish more often in the winter as the eels had buried themselves in the mud, nowadays the eels are simply not there in anywhere near the numbers, just 5 % of what there used to be.

I recently worked for a chap who works at the local nature reserve where they have built otter holts, one was burnt out by anglers they think, so there response was to build another two, which he said they will keep doing. I don't think building holts for otters is any different than putting up boxes for birds or bats, you are simply encouraging a chosen species and so is no more less natural than that.

I believe that before the reintroductions went ahead, the should have been a a long term plan over 10 or even 20 years of strengthening eel numbers as it beggars belief that an apex predator such as the otter would be reintroduced into areas where it main prey species is all but gone, incompetent or stooopid, you choose.

The reintroductions should have been carried out at designated sites, say 20 across the country, where just 3 of 4 animals were released and no more. These sites could have been studied to see how future offspring branched out to form new territories, natural colonization.

But my last two points were never considered, they only thought whether they could reintroduce otters, rather than if they should

Cheers Alan