\n A social media post made on Saturday, February 21 celebrating the sighting of an otter in a Saltaire canal sparked strong responses among commenters.\n<\/p>\n
\n While some were pleased to see an otter back in Shipley’s waters, others feared that the creature would decimate fishing stocks.\n<\/p>\n
\n But it turns out seeing an otter in Bradford district is nothing extraordinary – it was around 15 years ago that otters had successfully returned to every county in England.\n<\/p>\n
\n The Saltaire celebrity (Image: Adam Clarke Photography)\n<\/p>\n
Driven to extinction in the 70s<\/p>\n
\n Otters were near enough driven to extinction in the 1970s, but efforts to restore rivers and protect the species ensured the survival of the species in Britain.\n<\/p>\n
\n Their decline was attributed to the pollution of waterways with harmful pesticides and rapid habitat loss caused by changes in land management.\n<\/p>\n
\n The T&A went to the Otter Trust to get some facts on the reintroduction of the semiaquatic species to Britain’s waterways.\n<\/p>\n
\n Another shot of the otter (Image: Paul Sugden)\n<\/p>\n
A good sign for a wetland<\/p>\n
\n The Otter Trust, a trusted UK charity that supports the conservation of wetland species and habitats worldwide, said: “The Otter is the apex predator of our wetlands and a healthy otter population, is usually a good sign for a wetland.\n<\/p>\n
\n “The only official otter reintroductions took place in Southern England in the 1990s, with a small number being added alongside existing populations.\n<\/p>\n
\n “Otters do occasionally cause issues for garden pond owners, but as a general rule, they prefer to be in a \u2018wild\u2019 wetland habitat.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Otters eat rats. rabbits, water birds, amphibians, and fish (Image: Paul Sugden)\n<\/p>\n
Are otters threatening fish stocks?<\/p>\n
\n “Fish stocks are threatened by flooding and pollution, the otter has always been the barometer for river heath and the catastrophic decline in river species of the 1950-1970s was only detected when agricultural chemicals were found within carcasses of otters,” the spokesperson added.\n<\/p>\n
\n “Otters have a very large territory and prey on a wide range of species that included mammals such as rats and rabbits to water birds, amphibians, and fish.\n<\/p>\n
\n “A bigger threat to our wetland wildlife are the introduced American Mink, a species that has caused regional extinctions for species such as Water Voles.”\n<\/p>\n
Otters need the fish to survive, anglers don\u2019t<\/p>\n
\n Saltaire resident Damian Tapper, 46, is pleased to see otters back in Bradford district’s waterways.\n<\/p>\n
\n He said: “It\u2019s such a pleasure to be seeing otters back on the waterways.\n<\/p>\n
\n “When I was younger they were almost made extinct in the UK so to see them now is extra special.\n<\/p>\n
\n “I\u2019m sure anglers aren\u2019t too happy but the otters need the fish to survive, anglers don\u2019t.\n<\/p>\n
\n “When we see so much bad news regarding wildlife it\u2019s great to see at least one species doing well that bring joy to a lot of people.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A social media post made on Saturday, February 21 celebrating the sighting of an otter in a Saltaire…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":442554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-442553","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\/442553","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=442553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/442554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}