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Hello Everyone

(Mods please feel free to move if under the wrong forum)

I started working in this place that has a lovely dam a few months ago; it has ducks and birds and the whole beautiful scene. Last week Friday we found an otter, it was very exciting I was over the moon! He is a playful one, he was playing with the boat we used to try scare him from under the reeds when he was still a mysterious creature that we hadn't identified. Apparently over the weekend he killed 3 ducks (maybe there are no more fish in the dam) and they want to shoot him now to prevent more duck killings. This really broke my heart and I'd like to reach out and ask if anyone has any ideas I can put forward as an alternative as I really don't want him to die...

Any help will be much appreciated.

Catch and release will be good. Maybe there is someone that wants the otter on his farm. Hope you find a solution before they

WHY would they want to shoot the otter??? crazy people!!! catch and release is better.

An otter is bad news !

A single otter will kill at least once every 2 days - and that is over conservative !

Otters eat frogs/platannas, crabs, fish and water fowl - now, not many ponds have 175 fish or birds available per year.

So mister otter must go !

A farmer looking for an otter to destroy his aquaculture ? You must be kidding !
[ Sorry, this must sound insulting - but the reality is that, unless very high water fowl and or fish populations are present the introduction of an otter equates to suicide.]

Where no fish or water fowl frequents, a single otter has a territory of many kilometers of small streams to provide him with enough crabs and the occasional platanna – therefore they start raiding the farmers chicken runs.

No, I am sorry, mister otter must go and shooting is preferable to poisoning.

And catch and release is preferable to shooting and poisoning anything is unforgivable.

What a sad story! Is it not possible to catch it and give it to a zoo nearby? There are not that many Otters around! Please don't kill it!

100ponder I know what you're saying is true but I hate it

I thought about the catch and release option but there are 2 problems.. How to catch him and where to release him.

They say he might have come from a place not far from here but we can't take him there, there must be a reason he left.

I agree with you hilda, he is such a cute little thing and so hard to come across I would really like to see him end up somewhere safe, a zoo is a great idea.

A tough one this!! Family of mine have lost
many exotic ducks and geese to otter!!
They even "took out" some otter and now
have them displayed on the mantlepiece!

A keen aquatics collector, has had to suffer
great loss to otter!

My way out would be catch and dispatch,
since both fowl and otter have a rightful
place on this earth.

Oh dear WAC - which area/province is this 'problem' otter in?

WAC, lovely to see you again but so sad about your problem

I am going to echo Rosemary's qustion, where are you?
Free Me is fantastic at giving assitance, if you are not in the Gauteng area, they might be able to guide you to the relevant people.

MM so lovely to hear from you

I am in Gauteng, and I have had wonderful experience with Free Me, do you think they could help with catching him? That's the only probelm. Expecially as he has made himself very scarce lately.

W A C
I have missed you bud!
We are having a meet and greet at Rietvlei this Saturday! It would be fab if you came!
Check it out!

I wish I had an answer to your otter problem

Cheetah I would love to come ill have a look at the deets and confirm later

Anyone have the Free Me number?

Contact FreeMe for advice or in an emergency on:

Tel: (011) 807-6993
Cell: 083 558 5658 (a/h and emergency)
E-Mail: info@freeme.org.za
Fax : (011) 807-6814 or 086 212 5743


Mods if I should have send this via pm feel free to delete.....................

While I have sympathy with 100 ponder and others who have lost out to otters, please think about the logical conclusion to your suggestions...

In 56 years of daily activity in nature, I have only seen otters 3 times -- all three experiences were amazing! An otter swam up to my wife and I while we were having breakfast at Rooiwalle in Oudtshoorn; I surprised an otter running in the shallow sea water early in the morning at the Strand near Cape Town, and sea gulls were mobbing him as he desparately tried to cover the last 500m to get to the Lourens river estuary; imagine my surprise at finding a huge otter roaming between the buildings of a college at 21h00...!

So...

The indigenous (very rare, seldom seen) otter must be shot because he is eating exotic ducks...???

I know we lost a big flock of ducks on Helderberg College dam over the years, and I did see an otter roaming between the library and ad building during that time... but seriously -- if we follow this type of reasoning, then all the leopards in the Helderberg basin must go too, and the caracals, and the porcupines, and the resident Cape Eagle owls that have been visiting us for the last 15 years, because they are catching your bunnies or little kitten... and then we have to put out more poison to kill the invasion of mice and rats that now have fewer natural enemies...

Maybe the elephants and Rhinos in Kruger should go so we can have more pastures to produce more beef; and the lions must go, and...

It reminds me of a chap called Adolf, who reasoned that people with "inferior" genes, old age etc. (a few million of them) had to go... fortunately for the rest of us us HE decided to go!

In the end, WHO decides what/who is the most important, and who must go?

Just thinking...

God bless

Friedrich von Hörsten