\n Otter lover Tiffany Walters is warning drivers to slow down after two female otters were found dead by the B1018, Cressing Road.\n<\/p>\n
\n Ms Walters, who follows the UK Otter Trust, believes the otters were struck by vehicles when they were crossing the busy road on their way to a nearby reservoir. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n The first otter was found on January 18, while the second was found on Sunday.\n<\/p>\n
\n Warning: This article contains an image you may find distressing.\n<\/p>\n
\n Ms Walters said: \u201cI\u2019ve loved otters for years, I\u2019m a little bit obsessed with them. They\u2019re my guilty pleasure.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI saw this first otter had been killed and I didn\u2019t want it to just be left in the road, because to me that\u2019s disrespectful. So, I went and picked it up and put it on the side of the road.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI contacted Essex Wildlife Trust who came along and took the otter. And from what I understand the otter is then taken to Cardiff University for research.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThey\u2019ll look at the health of the otter and it can tell us a lot about the rivers and the quality of the water.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Sad – The first otter was taken by Essex Wildlife Trust, which may later be used for research about the nearby waters (Image: Tiffany Walters)\n<\/p>\n
\n Ms Walters said the second otter, which was found on Sunday, was lactating and actively breastfeeding, which is a strong indication there are cubs nearby.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI did try for three hours to look for them [Sunday] night but no success,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI\u2019m not an expert. I know quite a lot about them, but I\u2019ve never actively found a holt in the wild.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI was a bit out my depth. I couldn\u2019t find them.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI know 24 to 48 hours is critical after they\u2019ve lost their mum. It\u2019s just a case of looking and hopefully I get lucky.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Mother – The second otter was lactating, which means there were likely cubs nearby (Image: Tiffany Walters)\n<\/p>\n
\n Read more:\n<\/p>\n
\n Ms Walters said a lot of wildlife is killed on Cressing Road, a 60mph road with a river that runs nearby \u2013 but rarely otters.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cPeople do bomb down that road,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s just recently that these otters are crossing \u2013 they\u2019re obviously crossing the road to get to the reservoir to hunt.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cPoor little things. They were definitely both female, and this one was definitely actively breast feeding. Which is sad, but it is life.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n The European otter was close to extinction in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s because of pesticides affecting their breeding.\n<\/p>\n
\n The species has since recovered and are protected in law, so that it is an offence to wilfully kill, injure, capture or disturb otters except under licence.\n<\/p>\n
\n They are listed as \u2018near threatened\u2019 on the global IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Otter lover Tiffany Walters is warning drivers to slow down after two female otters were found dead by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":420023,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-420022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}