This Otter Holt is made from recycled plastics, enhancing durability and environmental friendliness. An artificial otter holt can be made in a variety of shapes and styles, using a range of materials from pre-fabricated recycled-plastic units, pallets, cut timber, to locally sourced logs and branches. An artificial holt may be created as replacement or compensation for disturbance to existing otter habitats.
Carefully sited and constructed artificial holts may encourage otters to recolonise and breed along stretches of waterways from which they are at present absent. With more than twenty years of experience of dealing with otters our fully licenced ecologists are uniquely placed for helping clients when otters are involved. Artificial otter holts provide safe refuge, encouraging otters to recolonise and breed in areas of waterways where there is little or no otter activity present. However, the criteria for selecting sites are, as yet, poorly investigated. This can be done in a variety of ways, using a variety of materials, such as logs, rough stones, breezeblocks, bricks and plastic pipes. This video is unavailable. We have males and females visiting this part of the bank just about every week to spraint. Posted at 14:20h in Ecology Oxford, Mitigation and Management, Protected Species by rowena. Artificial Otter Holts Whether as compensation for loss of habitat due to development works or as a wildlife enhancement measure, artificial otter holts provide added cover along river banks where other suitable habitat locations have been lost or are lacking.
Inspection of Artificial Otter Holts in the Allow Catchment Kieran Murphy, Tomasz Siekaniec October 2012 Introduction: The Otter (Lutra lutra) has been listed on Annex II and Annex IV of the EU Habitats Directive (CEC, 1992) and Appendix II of the Berne Convention (Council of Europe, 1979). These natural recesses provide the otter with a holt that has multiple entrances from which the otter can escape if disturbed. Otters are fully protected in British law and any development which affects otter habitat can require a European Protected Species Licence under the provisions of the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2010 (as amended).
An otter survey is required if development will affect habitats, such as rivers, streams, lakes or wetlands, where otters are present. The Habitat Heroes project aims to make adaptations to six Co-operative-owned farms across the country in order to safeguard endangered species such as water voles, bats and red squirrels. Whilst individual otters rarely dig their own holts they will use burrows made by other animals such as rabbits and foxes. ... Our ecologists can also provide design and construction for compensation methods, such as artificial otter holts and habitat creation to compensate for those that are lost. It is possible to build artificial holts … Artificial otter holt on a Welsh river bank. Working in conjunction with Hanson Aggregates Ltd and the RSPB, BSG Ecology staff have created an otter holt at a gravel pit in Oxfordshire.