Local Environmental Record Centres (LRCs) or their equivalent, can be found in each county in England and are usually supported by partners like Natural England, the Environment Agency, Local Authorities and Wildlife Trusts.
Live sightings of otters need to be reported to the respective centres for your area, below are those for the South West of England.
Somerset Environmental Records Centre www.somerc.com
Devon Biodiversity Records Centre www.dbrc.org.uk
Dorset Environmental Records Centre www.derc.org.uk
Bristol Regional Environmental Records Centre www.brerc.org.uk
Environmental Records Centre for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly www.erccis.org.uk
Dead Otters need to be reported:
Found dead in England? Please telephone 03708 506506 (Environment Agency)
Found dead in Wales? Please Telephone 0800 807060 (Natural Resources Wales)
Found dead in Scotland? Please telephone 01471 822487 (International Otter Survival Fund)
In Somerset the Somerset Otter Group collect dead otters for the Environment Agency and arrange transport to Cardiff University. www.otterproject.cf.ac.uk
The Somerset Otter Group has records dating from the 1970’s, all this data is shared with the Somerset Environmental Records Centre, SERC, and it is important for the otter that this is followed by others for all information in each county to be available from one source.
With the increase in social media groups with an interest in otters, important information is, on occasion, being diverted away from the agencies relying upon information to continue protecting otters.
This is an expansion of a previous post after contact details beyond Somerset were asked for. The links to the sites above are all worth a visit and saving in your favourites list. The record centres record all wildlife, so these are handy links to save.
Our interest is to ensure otter information doesn’t stray.