{"id":236505,"date":"2025-12-16T23:24:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T23:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/236505\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T23:24:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T23:24:11","slug":"footage-of-river-otter-scurrying-through-lincoln-a-delightful-reward-for-decades-of-conservation-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/236505\/","title":{"rendered":"Footage of River Otter Scurrying Through Lincoln\u2013a Delightful Reward for Decades of Conservation Work"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"credit \u2013 Lincoln Council, screengrab<\/p>\n

In the dreamy old city center of Lincoln, where Tudor and Victorian buildings stand bedecked in Christmas gaiety, CCTV footage revealed a wild sight one evening in November.<\/p>\n

A red fox and a river otter were galivanting through the town\u2014as near to a scene in a children\u2019s books or a Disney film as could be imagined.<\/p>\n

No one knows, writes Patrick Greenfield for the Guardian<\/a>, how many river otters exist in England, but the unlikely security camera footage reveals that unlike 20 years ago, these charming riverine mammals are no longer rare.<\/p>\n

The Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust described their rapid return to the waterways of Britain as \u201cremarkable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTwenty years ago, they were almost nonexistent,\u201d said the Trust\u2019s head of nature recovery, Janice Bradley. \u201cThen we saw them coming up the River Trent from other areas. Now, we\u2019ve got records of otters in virtually every river and watercourse in the county. It\u2019s remarkable.\u201d<\/p>\n

100 years on from the collapse of animal populations across the Industrialized world, the stories of decline often repeat themselves. For the river otter, it was two of the most familiar\u2014the pollution of rivers from industrial dumping, and overhunting for their furs.<\/p>\n

But with both practices largely gone, and thanks to a targeted reintroduction campaign in the eastern areas of Britain, there may be as many as 11,000 river otters in the country.<\/p>\n

Scientists admit that\u2019s speculation, but it\u2019s difficult to monitor their numbers reliably.<\/p>\n

While outright dumping is much less common than it was in the first-half of the 20th century, the otters face other risks of water contamination. PFAS, the so-called forever chemicals, and microplastics accumulate in the water, which accumulate in fish, and therefore accumulate in the otters.<\/p>\n

GREAT OTTER STORIES:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Because of this, and because of their return, conservationists say that the otter can act as a powerful and charismatic national symbol for river health and water quality control.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s nothing personal, but the face of a fish is just not as moving to people as that of an otter, and something like the video from Lincoln offers better PR for environmental protection measures than even the largest, most glittering game fish caught by an angler.<\/p>\n

WATCH the galivanting below\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

SHARE This Delightful Story And Hilarious Footage With Your Friends\u2026\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"credit \u2013 Lincoln Council, screengrab In the dreamy old city center of Lincoln, where Tudor and Victorian buildings…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":236506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[273],"tags":[100,3248,3616,23737,18,4507,440,19,17,22686,76243,133,14081,48480,1294,461],"class_list":{"0":"post-236505","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-animals","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-conservation","11":"tag-cute","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-england","14":"tag-environment","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-laughs","18":"tag-rivers","19":"tag-science","20":"tag-success","21":"tag-top-videos","22":"tag-uk","23":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115731829258403988","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}