Worcestershire Record No. 26 April 2009 p. 8

OTTERS IN KIDDERMINSTER

Rosemary Winnall

For the past year I have been mapping tracks and signs of otters in the Wyre Forest, so I was intrigued when Wendy Larmour showed me a photograph of animal tracks alongside the River Stour in Kidderminster. Wendy wanted confirmation that these were otter prints, so off I went to Morrison’s car park to investigate.

During February and March 2009 there has been a long spell of dry weather, and this made conditions ideal for checking watercourses for animal tracks and droppings. Silty banks had been exposed on which tracks could be found, and rocks used as sprainting sites could be checked regularly with no danger of the droppings being washed off by heavy rain between times.

When I examined the exposed sandy ledge below Morrison’s car park (see Photo 1), I could see both obvious otter prints (see Photo 2) plus the characteristic sandy mounds that otters sometimes make to deposit their droppings, called spraints (see Photos 3 and 4). I was very surprised to see evidence of such recent and regular usage of this waterway by otters, and was determined to find out more.

I set out to follow the river and its backwaters through Kidderminster with my binoculars and GPS and I was fascinated with what I found.

As you may know, part of the fast-flowing River Stour was long ago diverted in two places in Kidderminster so that water could be taken through the carpet factories, originally power this industry but also to supply water for cleaning the wool and washing after dyeing. As I was peering over a bridge in the heart of the town I started chatting to an elderly gentleman who asked what I was looking for. He subsequently described what the River Stour used to be like years ago when it ran out through the industrial Black Country and down through the carpet factories in the town. He said that it was so heavily polluted that nothing could live in it and he related how you could tell what colour dyes the carpet factory upstream was using by looking at the river! The water was polluted with chemicals from the dyes, sheep dip and pesticides from the moth proofing process and if you fell into the River Stour, you had to be taken to hospital! He said he was thrilled to see clear water running through Kidderminster again!

I crept through barriers and lurked under bridges in my search for sandy bars and stones with telltale droppings. I found tracks and spraints under the main bridge leading into Tesco’s car park! This was interesting because the whole river was moved across when this area was redeveloped in 2001. There were even otter prints on a small sandy riverside edge behind the shop T. J. Hughes! I then knocked on the door of the Kidderminster Fire Station as I had heard stories of fireman seeing otters when they were on night duty. Although the fireman I spoke to could not elaborate, he kindly took me on a tour of their riverside land and sure enough, I found tracks there too!

Kidderminster is between two important wetland areas – Puxton Marsh to the north and Wilden Marsh south of the town. It is obvious that otters are using the waterways through the town on a regular basis. They are probably using the canals too, but it is harder to find field signs there. Paul Allen, Countryside and Conservation Officer, Wyre Forest District Council, has known about the otters in Kidderminster for some time and has been working with local businesses and schools to ensure that riverbanks are improved for otters to use. Many artificial holts have been put in and trees planted.

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  Photo 1. River Stour below Morrison's car park 18.03.2009
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  Photo 2. Otter tracks in sand, Morrison's 18.03.2009
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  Photos 3 (above) and 4 (below). Otter spraint on sandy mound, Morrison's 18.03.2009
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Centuries ago otters were so frequent that they were thought of as vermin in some areas. In parish records it states in 1590 that a churchwarden offered two shillings for the killing of an otter in the parish of Stratford sub Castle near Salisbury. It is interesting to see that in St Mary’s Parish Church in Kidderminster there is a splendid old Cooksey family tomb showing an otter each side of the coat of arms. This monument is to Sir Hugh Cooksey (and his wife), lord of Caldwall Manor who died in 1445.

Otters were commonplace on all waterways until the mid 1950s. Many of us probably remember seeing otter hounds working rivers in our childhood! The Hawkstone Otter Pack used to hunt through Shropshire, Herefordshire and the Welsh borders and in a 20 year period from 1870 to 1890 they disposed of 704 otters!

In 1957/58 a sudden decline started in England and Wales. This was first noted by the otter hunters as their catch declined, but this was not until the 1960s. At the same time Peregrine Falcon and Sparrowhawk numbers crashed and large numbers of foxes were found dead in East Anglia. These deaths were linked to the introduction of the persistent organochlorine insecticides Dieldrin and Aldrin used as cereal seed dressings. Considerable residues of dieldrin were found in the organs of these top predators as well as herons. It was shown that these chemicals were polluting our watercourses leading to the death of many animals or a reduction in their reproductive processes.

Use of these pesticides was banned from 1962 to 1975 which resulted in signs of a comeback of Sparrowhawks and Peregrine Falcons, but otters were much slower to increase in numbers, perhaps because of the increased management of riverbanks and increased leisure activities along rivers. In addition American mink were being found in our countryside for the first time as some escaped from mink farms, and others were ‘released’ into the wild by the activions of animal activists and eventually on the closure of the mink farms in the 1960s. The first breeding pair of Mink was found in Devon in 1957. There was a breeding explosion in the 60s and by 1969 mink were living in every county in the UK!

It became illegal to kill otters in 1978 but a survey in 1984 showed that otters in the Midlands had still not recovered and were virtually extinct from Worcestershire. It was with interest that we heard of the occasional record in the area in the 1990s and sightings on the River Stour in more recent years.

Back in Kidderminster in the early 2000’s, Wyre Forest District Council and Brinton’s Ltd worked with Centros in their redevelopment of the 18 acre brownfield site which is now Tesco’s supermarket. Before this opened in 2002 the River Stour had to be re-routed during the process and otters were apparently known from this area at that time.

The new Morrison’s supermarket (opened in September 2008) is built on the site of another carpet factory. This area of land between the River Stour and the ring road was developed with special sensitive landscaping to encourage wildlife. In addition the store received the Excellent Rating in the prestigious BREEAM Award for an environmentally friendly building – the first supermarket in the country to achieve this award. Otters had been known in this locality for the last few years so during the redevelopment and landscaping, their needs were considered. Artificial holts were put in and otter ledges were inserted under bridges. These meant that when the Stour was in flood the otters could still pass under the bridges on these ledges and did not need to cross the roads. The riverbank was planted up and the car park lighting was sensitively sited. There are informative display boards at Morrisons to explain the development.

Evidence of otters was found in the following locations in Kidderminster: