Pretty angry about a message this morning from someone who "might"/"could"/"probably" and who then went on to explain how important his time was and that he had told some (no idea who) where the dead otter was...it was a mess of a message.
I have sent the following out to Bristol Nature Network and Bristol Naturalist Society on Face Book:
"I was today contacted, as far as I can ascertain, not by a member of the Bristol Otter Group about the otter I confirmed as being dead on Friday. I was contacted after a discussion at an event (apparently) and it was reported that there was a dead otter at a known blackspot -firstly for animal welfare and protection I do not give out locations of otters whether dead or alive and so the location was misinformation not originating from me.
"Last year I spent a great deal of time communicating with Bristol pathology and Cardiff university and in the end it was decided that otters should be diverted to Bristol where full post mortems could be carried out (such PMs are a rarity) and Cardiff got the samples it needed and this would give an overall picture of otter health -it would also save the otter group having to store the otters for a long period and then drive to Cardiff and back. I even had someone at the time who would drive out to collect the bodies for them since it can take 24-48 hours at best to get any response from them. I was given a public slap on the face (on this group) for having said the otter group agreed to this. I did not state that.
"The important thing is to get animals who are under study to a pathology lab asap. After a number of hours rigor mortis sets in and even in the current weather flies settle on carcasses and they become "maggot surprises" -we are all too familiar with that ion fox carcass retrievals. On the 2nd February I reported a confirmed otter death and posted here about it and that a vet was in possession of it. I believe that it was four days later I was asked which vet. Vets that are willing, and there are very few, to keep a dead animal in their freezer only do so for about 24 hours so unless a request is made to store for a day more then protocol kicks in and the carcass is sent for disposal. So 3-4 days later the otter is gone.
"The current otter was reported and confirmed as an otter on Friday. If fly strike and other wildlife have not all started doing their work it would be a miracle. I kept a location map of both and awaited someone from the otter group to get in touch. As a field naturalist and the person recording fox and badger deaths in the area I tend to have something like a dead otter reported on the day of death. Fresh.
"I will keep recording any otter deaths an d make people aware of them but unless the otter group changes the way it works then these will also be lost. I learnt the lesson the hard way about collecting and submission so I hope protocols can be changed so that people are contactable and can go out to recover bodies asap.
"And 'thank you' to the person who contacted me and indeed MY time is equally as important with the workload I have."
Why get into wildlife work/projects if you are not going to bother?
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