The committee would like to address the rumours of otters on Home Farm, that you may have heard. We believe in being transparent with the membership so here are the facts.
We have recovered 5 dead fish, 3 Carp to low-doubles and 2 small Catfish, the Carp especially did appear to be typical of otter kills. One further catfish of just over 30lbs has been caught with some fresh damage that could be due to an otter attack.
In terms of timeline, these were all recovered within a ~2 week window, for the past ~4 weeks there have been no further signs of dead fish, otter movements or sightings. We are using wildlife cameras and other detection methods to held us gain evidence as to whether they are still present (we believe not), and/or alert us if they return.
As it stands, we believe that this was likely a young male otter, passing through trying to find its own territory. The kills were not frequent enough, or scalable enough in our opinion to support a family or breeding pair of otters.
As I’m sure you can imagine the prospect of fencing this venue is daunting, in terms of finances, logistics. We are looking into options including part fencing, deterrents in terms of electric fencing in some areas and full-scale fencing, however we are monitoring the situation and will not be making any rash decisions.
Whilst it is hard to have seen, the number of fish lost is extremely low, and all the evidence suggests that the otter may now have moved on, so we’ll continue to gather evidence as described above and react accordingly.
Any questions please let us know.
Many thanks,
Paxmans Angling Club Committee