A Map of Otter Valley

A sketch Map of Otter Valley

This map is a simple sketch representation of the valley where the Otters and I live. Like a struggling network of veins and capillaries in danger of becoming choked by years of human excess and over indulgence, these life-giving ribbons of water criss-cross the valley forcing their way under roads, through industrial estates and across open farmland, southwards, towards the open ocean, little more than 25km away. My small part of the river valley is no more than about 2.5k m2 and is crushed, like a green finger, between the hard boney areas of human habitation to the west and east, more open rural fields and small villages to the north and the choking urban sprawl of the towns and cities to the south. 

Despite the obvious challenges facing wildlife in this environment Otters seem to thrive here. True their numbers had dwindled significantly for various reasons. But, their reintroduction in the early 1980s means that along the entire length of this river from source to mouth there are as many as 13 Otters. Of course nobody can be certain but it is a promising sign that nature has remarkable powers of regeneration and survival against all the odds. Its only fitting that we - so often the destroyers - should give mother nature a helping hand now and again.

You might wonder why i don't keep my options open. Why I don't explore a much wider area, longer stretches of driver to increase my chances of success. Well the plain fact is that Otters have quite large territories and its next to impossible to monitor the entire range without devoting ones entire life to the task. A female otter may have a range of 20-30Km and they will defend their territories quite vigourously. Males on the other-hand might travel across the territories of several females and have a range of unto 70km. Consequently it makes sense to study a small area where you know there is significant Otter activity and thereby learn as much as one can through dogged determination and reasonably reliable observations carried out over time.

In addition Hampshire is a county well endowed with crystal clear chalk streams that babble along beds of golden gravel with delicate fronds of Common Water Crowfoot (Ranunculus aquatlis) waving like the hair of water nymphs in the gentle current. It is the ideal environment for fish, in particular trout and where there is trout there are always fishermen. Trout fishing is a rich man's sport and much of the riverside access is private, controlled by private fisheries and fishing clubs. Therefore undertaking any sort of study, amateur or professional, is difficult because so little of the waterway is accessible. This does of course have its benefits especially for the Otters. The rivers are for the most part very clean and by-and-large kept that way. The fish stocks are good and because the general public are kept away there is little human disturbance along the river bank. So the fisheries have their good and bad points, they help manage and maintain the rivers but block access to most people. They manage and maintain the river network largely for the benefit of the fishermen but in so doing they also encourage a more diverse range of wildlife which, I guess, can only benefit all of us in the long run.