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Autumn 2002 No. 14
Page 2
SPRING 2002 RESULTS
DORSET OTTER GROUP SPRING 2002 SURVEY RESULTS | ||||
| No. Surveyed | Positive | Negative | % Positive | |
| River Avon | 6 | 2 | 4 | 33.3 |
| River Axe | 7 | 4 | 3 | 57.1 |
| River Frome | 57 | 8 | 49 | 14 |
| River Piddle | 13 | 3 | 10 | 23.1 |
| Poole Harbour | 8 | 1 | 7 | 12.5 |
| Upper Stour | 37 | 10 | 27 | 27 |
| Lower Stour | 67 | 18 | 31 | 27.1 |
| West Dorset Rivers | 49 | 18 | 31 | 36.7 |
| River Wey and the Fleet | 11 | 0 | 11 | 0 |
| River Yeo | 12 | 8 | 4 | 66.7 |
| TOTAL | 269 | 73 | 196 | 27.1 |
Remember Now that your Summer 2002 results should be in the Autumn Survey starts in the 1st September and runs until the 31st October, with results in at the end of November.
This time last year no survey took place because of the Foot and Mouth outbreak, so no direct seasonal comparison can be made. The last set of results were Winter 2002, this had a total of 202 sites surveyed, 24.8/% of which were positive, so it is an increase on this!
For the ottery year I’ve decided to group Poole Harbour and the Rivers Corfe and Sherford, in a similar way that the West Dorset rivers and the River Wey and Fleet are grouped. From these results you can see that there is a positive for Poole Harbour. The last time a positive was found in this area was when a spraint was found on Brownsea Island in 1999. This time spraint was found on the River Sherford by Phillippa Forstesque when she was supposed to be looking for birds. Phillippa’s keen eyes have been responsible for many of the positive results on the West Dorset rivers – not just her own sites but also giving guidance to other surveyors in that area. If spraint is anywhere to be found it seems that Phillippa can find it!
Surveying black holes
If you look at the map you can see areas of Dorset where no otter surveying is going on. I am quite keen to fill these holes so that a more even picture of Dorset is obtained. These ‘holes’ sometimes move but the main holes at the moment are:
1. The top of the Stour near Gillingham
2. The middle of the Stour between Blandford and Wimborne, the Tarrant and North Winterbourne.
3. The middle of the Frome between Dorchester and Wool.
4. The top of the Piddle.
If anyone is interested in taking on extra sites in these areas or knows of any friends that might like to survey in these areas please let me know.
Bronwen Bruce
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