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Post by keepitreal on Aug 10, 2015 21:57:57 GMT
Otters have long had good populations north of the border on wild trout and salmon rivers. It was agricultural pollution on many of the English rivers that made them disappear from these areas in the first place.
Yes they have been reintroduced too quickly but there is nothing we can do about that now. Members on here are starting to see a balance now happening in Yorkshire, and we still have specimen barbel available to catch, some rivers seemingly fishing better than ever.
We'll never see action taken against otters, far better to moan about something that has no place in our countryside like Signals, mink and Wels Catfish, maybe one day something proactive will be done about these threats.
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Post by Eddie on Aug 10, 2015 22:35:33 GMT
Nothing is set in stone, and as I have said ea findings say 70% of uk rivers are in decline, the river wharfe described as a failing river! Could any of these statistics have anything to do with otters or maybe suggest the rivers might be better off without them. I fish the wharfe at several different locations and some, I suppose, do buck the trend. These are facts reported at Leeds committee meetings from ea sources, I hope our rivers are on the up. Still don't think we needed otters introducing everywhere though, no benefit to anglers. What will opinions be the day we se a double figure barbel dragged out of topcliffe by an otter, I have already seen one dragging an 18in trout out. Double figure barbel are quite rare and not likely replaced easily, if at all while we have otter predation!
Eddie.
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Post by grayson on Aug 11, 2015 6:23:57 GMT
Eddie - hunting had absolutely nothing to do with the otter's decline . What did for them was the accumulation of dangerous agri-chemicals which were used with gay abandon in the post war period . The key thing about the Wharfe is that anecdotally it has declined and what little research has been done tends to confirm this . But the cause needs far more research and I would be amazed if it was simple as' remove otters and river is revived overnight' . Rivers so often have a whole complex web of causes for decline - pollution, abstraction, poor habitat , poor recruitment,poor fry survival because of flooding , predation etc. The angling press love a simple story - anglers love to get wound up and to focus their anger on one simple and visible cause. If only things were quite so simple - but the reality is infinitely more complex and nuanced .
Re barbel on Swale , by the way ,the stats and other info I have seen suggest very high levels of small barbel presence which I hope is a good sign for the future.They have turned up in big numbers in lamprey and bug sampling in upper reaches of river .
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Post by grayson on Aug 11, 2015 17:38:08 GMT
There has been a case already and the fishery owner lost . What I do think anglers need to think about is that , private stillwaters apart, we are far from the only ones with an interest in rivers. We might bluster about caring for 'our ' waters but the reality is most anglers do two parts of bugger all to look after their rivers and far too many still leave line and litter . How many belonged to the ACA and now to the Angling Trust? About 1% .We are great at moaning and absolutely dreadful at doing anything positive to safeguard our sport .
We don't have any sort of moral(let alone legal) trump card to play which says one dead barbel is a bigger loss or tragedy than a dead otter or water vole. I also think the release of otters concern is spurious- they were on their way back anyway - lots of otter evidence around long before any releases . And some of the daft stories are just bonkers- I was told that 50 had been released in one spot on the Ouse by one angler - I tried to keep a straight face and didn't succeed .
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