Kent Mammal Group - Otters in Kent

Otters in Kent

Sunday, 06 March 2011 22:48

There have been recent reports on television that otters are extinct in Kent as no signs of this species were found in an Environment Agency survey of the county's waterways in 2010. To misquote Mark Twain though we are happy to say that "the report of their death is an exaggeration".

A recent spot check by Jon Bramley our County Mammal Recorder at one site on the Medway in west Kent found an otter holt and a good pile of spraint nearby (Photo can be seen in the gallery). So otters are very much not extinct but still extant in our County. There have also been further reports of otters in the north Kent Marshes and spraint has been recently collected west of Church Street. These animals may well have come directly to us across the Thames from Essex.

County Mammal Recorder (March 2011)