Autumn 2002 No. 14

Page 4

The first day we went out on our survey we didn’t manage to find any clues that suggested the existence of otters in the area; however on the second day we found what we thought were the remains of food left by an otter. As you can imagine we were really looking forward to reporting that to the manager of the centre. As we continued our survey that day we found quite a few similar food remains that made us suspicious about whether they came from otters or not. Therefore, we decided to take a sample to the centre for a second opinion. Unfortunately, it turned out that the food remains we found didn’t come from otters but from birds and so the second day of our survey was also unsuccessful. You can’t imagine out disappointment but there was nothing we could do but continue our survey and hope to be luckier in the future. During the six weeks that I took part in that survey we did not find any signs of otters but I was informed afterwards that spraint was found at a later time.

Now, days before I start my survey on otters at Christchurch Harbour, I am a bit anxious to see whether I will find any otter footprints or spraint and I hope that this time I am going to be more successful.

Anna Lepinioti

I am sure that we all wish Anna an enjoyable time working as a conservation volunteer and good luck with the survey. Two questions – do Greek otters like taramasalata and what is the Greek for spraint? [ed.]

A Practical Guide To Hunting Otters

‘As the only sport with hounds that may be pursued during the summer months when the cry of other hounds is silenced, a sport that is followed during the best days of the year and the best hours of the day, which takes its devotees into the most picturesque parts of the country and affords them the finest and most health-giving of exercise, besides, in the most humane manner, contributing to the keeping of otters within due bounds in the interest of fresh-water fisheries, otter hunting is assured of a longer future than probably any other field sport.’

Captain L.C.R. Cameron, the author of these words, may perhaps be forgiven for getting it so wrong. He was writing in the 1930’s, twenty years before we began to wipe out the otter population with pesticides and pollution. When he published his book ‘Otter Hunting’ in 1938 otters were still in plentiful supply. He records that the 21 packs of otter hounds then operating in Great Britain had found 5,000 otter between them during the past five seasons and killed over half of them. The only cloud on the horizon was the campaigning of ‘faddist Societies’ who are ‘ever on the look out for opportunities of maligning and misrepresenting the sport and its followers… otter hunting, sad to relate, has its enemies and it is of no use blinking the fact or minimising their power for evil’.

The otter was hunted by its scent trail or ‘drag’, aided by the evidence of tracks and spraint; a spraint found on the down-stream side of a boulder or spit of land jutting out into a stream was a useful indicator as to which direction to follow. The hunt began early in the morning when the scent was still strong and could lead the pack to the holt or couch where the otter was lying up. Rivers were usually ‘drawn’ following an upstream route. An otter travelling in this direction, against the flow of the water, would be more likely to cross bends on dry land and so leave a clearer scent and it would also be easier to hunt the otter upstream as the river narrowed.