The lives of otters

OTTERS are charming creatures in the way in which, all of a sudden, they poke their heads out of the water and, with whiskers dripping silvery water-drops, regard us with a look of intelligent curiosity in their dark brown eyes.

It is hard to believe that they were once hunted largely for pleasure, and otterhound packs were expensively maintained. An otter didn’t stand much chance when, having outdistanced the dogs by swimming faster, huntsmen would, on occasion, drive it back into the pack of hounds. Nevertheless, it sometimes escaped death’s jaws by skilful turning, twisting and diving. Happily, the 1976 Wildlife Act protected otters, and hunting was banned four years later.

The otter we recently saw in the River Suir wore a mud-pack on its face. It must have been grubbing on the bottom for crustaceans. As it swam upriver, its grace was beautiful to behold, its sleek body breaking the surface every 10 metres or so, surfacing and disappearing in a series of shallow dives.