Otter believed to have taken up home on the Rother

Otter believed to have taken up home on the Rother

April 27, 2018

South Downs rangers are excited to have captured new footage of an otter, left on a camera trap on the river Rother on 11 April 2018. This is the first time an otter has been recorded at this particular site in many years.

Volunteers first noticed otter prints on a mink raft a few weeks earlier and the camera was installed to try and capture the animal on film. As the footage was caught a couple of weeks after the prints were spotted Rangers are confident that the otter is probably now resident here.

The camera trap had been put in place to monitor whether invasive species American mink, which threatens our native wildlife, was at large in the area.

When a solitary otter was captured on a camera trap in September 2015 it was the first confirmed evidence of the animals on the upper Rother since 2001. Since then, National Park rangers and volunteers have been gradually finding more evidence of otter on the river, mostly by sprainting (leaving droppings) on top of the rafts put in place to check for mink. Further footage captured in May 2017 showed two animals together for the first time and left rangers optimistic that the animals would making a determined return to the area.

The specific location of the site is not being revealed.