Wotta otter shocker!

Thursday 07 January 2016

If you go down to the woods today you could be in for a big surprise - you could come across Geoff, a three-year-old south-east Asian short-clawed otter who has escaped from Durrell.

Geoff has been giving his keepers the run around for more than a month and after several sightings of him in St Catherine's Woods they are now setting some live traps to try and get him back home to the wildlife park as soon as possible.

Durrell’s Head of Animal Collection Mark Brayshaw said: “The group got out of their enclosure at the beginning of December, we got the rest of the group back in but he was a bit more tricky and reluctant. He was on the site for about a week and then we didn’t see him and that’s when we contacted the States department, the States vet and Jersey Water and the Angling Association and the same day someone spotted him in St Catherine’s Woods.”

“They had all escaped the week before as there was a slight weakness in the fence but generally when animals escape they want to go back in. He’s a young male, maybe wanting to break the apron strings but there’s no chance of him breeding as there are no other otters in Jersey and he’s been vasectomised anyway.

“There’s plenty of food out there – slugs, snails, mice and there’s a chance he’s taken some of the fish there but if he gets to the coast which isn’t very far away, that would be a worry. 

"We've got some live traps and we're just trying to find the best area to put them. We won't set them, we'll put bait out and get him used to going in and out."

Geoff's keepers hope to reunite him with the other four otters at Durrell as soon as possible. 

Picture credit: Jenny Marzana