First impressions

As it was getting late, we decided that the cub would spend one more night with Peter.

That night I spent some time getting ready for the cubs arrival. I looked out an old wooden chest from the shed. I cut an opening in the front of the hinged box and filled it with towels. This would be the cubs bed.

Early the next day Peter arrived and we moved the cub to it's new temporary accomodation...my porch! During the Summer months, the porch is a photo gallery. With the gallery being closed for the winter, it would now make a temporary Otter room.

We lifted the large lobster keep cage and carried it into the porch area. With everything in place, Peter opened the rope door and the otter was out. The cub had a good look around, a good sniff and then made it's way to the old chest.

By this point, Peter had already been hand feeding the cub with the finest of supermarket fillet salmon and trout. It wasn't long before the little otter was sheepishly investigating and eating Tesco's finest from my hand.

I wonder how young it is? Is it a Boy or a Girl? What should it be eating? How often should it be eating?Where will get the food from? How often does it shit? The questions went on.

What should we call it? At this point Peter said...."Otto"!!! "It's name is Otto the Otter"!!!

There was no way that Otto could stay in the Porch for too long. We started the plans to build a run in the garden. Some kind of large enclosure. Somewhere cool for an Otter. As well as building a run, we would have to construct an insulated weatherproof and watertight sleeping holt for Otto to chill in. What about a regular food supply? ...got to act fast on this one.

October 2012

Our first meeting

 My friend Peter opened the passenger door of his wagon. "A challenge, if your are willing to except it" he said. I peered in and found myself looking at a large lobster keep cage. I looked through the ropes of the cage to find there was something looking back at me and it wasn't a lobster. To my surprise it was a baby Otter.

Peter had been working on the neighbouring island of Tiree and had got wind of two orphaned Otter cubs.Their Mother was killed by a car, and the cubs had taken refuge in a roadside wall. They had been there for days. Peter quickly took the undernourished cubs under his wing and gave them some food and water. In the morning the weaker of the two cubs had unfortunately died. The remaining cub continued to gain it's strength and a few days later was fighting fit again.

Peter has four working dogs to look after, so an Otter was out of the question. He needed someone to take the cub off his hands. Due to previously rearing Greylag Geese back to the wild, I became his first choice for surrogate mother.

I live in a little cottage by the sea. There is a freshwater burn running to it which comes from a nearby freshwater loch. There is plenty of open space and virtually no neighbours. The passing trade is also minimal. What else do I need?

I accepted the challenge.

October 2012