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A retired teacher from Worcester claims he has lost over £7,000 worth of highly-valued Koi carp fish to an unusual thief – a local otter. Kieran McCarthy kept around 106 fish in a pond at his home, which is near the River Severn in Worcestershire.
Mr McCarthy first suspected an otter was to blame for his disappearing fish when he discovered the picked-clean carcass of one of his prized Koi carp next to his pond.
Launching an investigation into the goings-on, McCarthy filmed the web-footed thief in the middle of the night, snatching the koi from the water.
Believed to originate in Japan, Koi carp are some of the most expensive domestic fish available for purchase in the UK.
They can often require a lot of maintenance to their environment to thrive, including the installation of water filters.
Unfortunately, over the course of the next five nights, Mr McCarthy lost a staggering 106 fish to the midnight intruder, despite shelling out £140 on chicken wire to protect his shoal.
Speaking to The Sun, the grandfather said: “I couldn’t believe we would see an otter like this in a built-up area.”
Otters are often timid and not usually observed in areas of regular human activity.
However, Mr McCarthy found this not always to be true, stating: “I’ve been shooing it away with a torch but one night he looked me in the eye and carried on.”
He went on to say, “The council told me I was lucky to have otters in my garden. But when you have fish, they are absolute killing machines.”
While there are 13 different otter species worldwide, the Eurasian otter is the only species known to inhabit Europe.
According to the Canal and River Trust, the UK population declined in the 1950s but has seen signs of bouncing back.
After conservation efforts, they can now be found in England and Wales around lakes, rivers and rocky or coastal areas, but they can also be seen near canals, usually hunting.
Their territories are often vast, sometimes taking up as much as 25 miles of waterways and surrounding areas.
Koi carp can often fall victim to other predators like herons, who can often fish them out of both deep and shallow water, potentially sitting for hours and hours next to domestic ponds if not disturbed.
While netting and other devices can be purchased to protect ponds, it is no guarantee that fish will remain unharmed, as Mr McCarthy found out.
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