Shetland otters suffer from overfishing

This video is called Scotland’s Big 5 – European Otter.

By Stephen Walsh in Scotland:

Photographs show the plight of Shetland otters

4 December 2014

An award-winning Shetland photographer has released a series of images which show the daily battle faced by the islands’ wildlife.

Richard Shucksmith, of Skellister, has spent the last three years documenting the plight faced by otters native to the area.

Otters are faced with a shortage of food and often resort to killing unusual prey such as puffins and octopus in order to stay alive.

…

Last month, staff at the Hillswick Wildlife Sanctuary had to rescue two orphaned otter cubs, just 10 weeks old, from two locations in the mainland Shetland village of Vidlin.

The pair of baby brothers, named Joey and Thea, were suffering from cold and lack of food.

Originally from Lincoln, Mr Shucksmith is also an ecologist, and studied at the Scottish Association for Marine Science at Dunstaffnage, near Oban, where he researched the impact on marine communities of invasion by non-native species.

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