Ways to Keep Predators Away From Your Koi

[VanDiesil]

A major problem other than the normal cats & herons in the UK now are otters. I know several people who have had their ponds raided by otters even though they are a way from natural waterways. The wounds and remains are identical to otter kills in the wild. The problem is that otters are protected species in the UK, and are causing a lot of problems within the angling community and costing lake owners a fortune in installing otter fencing (which when you have a 60 acre+ lake to fence off is not a cheap or quick job). If I see an otter in my garden, I cannot say that I could leave it alone......

 

[VanDiesil]

This video shows how brazen otters are becoming. This video was posted on a facebook page earlier of an unwanted visitor to the garden centre!!!

 

[Tula]

Ugh Have to admit, it's little face is cute though.

 

[Dave 54]

Van dont you let Val catch you badmouthing otters my friend they are her favorite furry creature
Aaron fish caves are all well and good but koi themselves are a powerful fish and bolting into caves pipes or anything else a person could use to protect them from preditors may cause them to do serious damage to themselves in total panic
Try researching koi decoys that are life like plastic replicas that you anchor to the bottom of your pond , the heron will go for these first giving your koi chance to hit deep water.
Sadly though we blame them , it is we who are at fault here not the bird or the otter when it all boils down to it as we are putting tame brightly coloured fish in ponds that are in reality preditor friendly snack bars.
Most koi keepers here in the UK have ponds 4-5ft deep but they still have edges a heron can stand on with the ponder its even more of a snack bar as they are often at a depth that a heron could wade in.
I doubt wether anyone will build a preditor free pond but we can at least set devices in place to either scare a preditor away, net the pond with small enough mesh that a beak wont go through it or hang fishing line around and above the pond

Dave

 

[VanDiesil]

I believe that all creatures have a place in the wild, but when they are hand reared and released with no fear of humans and look at humans as being a source of food for them (not in the way of eating the human!), then something needs to be done to protect peoples livelihoods. I know people personally who have lost successful businesses in fish farming due to the reintroduction of Otters as they have worked their way up the natural waterways and literally devastated the rearing ponds (which were fenced off but not Otter proof at time of installation due to there was no Otter's around when they were put in) of hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of fish (not Koi either!!). I am seeing new images daily on my Facebook feeds of people I know that have had fish from their ponds killed by Otters (and some of these houses are miles from the nearest waterway!), so the Otters are moving away from the already Cormorant devastated rivers and lakes in search of food. The RSPB are also concerned about the Otters killing rare birds that have been breeding on the Norfolk Broads and other wetlands such is the scarcity of the Otters preferred natural fool , the Eel, in them now. I also know people who have had their aviaries attacked by Otters (caught on camera) but luckily the Otter has not managed to get in to it.

A good friend of mine locally owns a pool of approximately an acre in size. He lost 4 large carp (30lb+ each) to Otters 18 months ago, and it has cost him over £10,000 to put an Otter proof perimeter fence in and another £3000 to replace the fish with smaller ones of the same genetic strain. His pool is an acre in size, imagine perimeter fencing a lake a lot bigger with the scale of the task as well as the cost of the materials!!

I don't want to put an unsightly fence around the pond to the height where an otter could not get over it, nor run an electric charge around it.

 

[Aaron S]

Dave I agree with you about koi possibly getting injured in a fish cave. In my case I just have Comet Goldfish and they do not get anywhere near the size of a koi. My largest fish is about 5 years old and its about 7 inches long. If I had koi then it would be a different story.

 

[Dave 54]

I believe that all creatures have a place in the wild, but when they are hand reared and released with no fear of humans and look at humans as being a source of food for them (not in the way of eating the human!), then something needs to be done to protect peoples livelihoods. I know people personally who have lost successful businesses in fish farming due to the reintroduction of Otters as they have worked their way up the natural waterways and literally devastated the rearing ponds (which were fenced off but not Otter proof at time of installation due to there was no Otter's around when they were put in) of hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of fish (not Koi either!!). I am seeing new images daily on my Facebook feeds of people I know that have had fish from their ponds killed by Otters (and some of these houses are miles from the nearest waterway!), so the Otters are moving away from the already Cormorant devastated rivers and lakes in search of food. The RSPB are also concerned about the Otters killing rare birds that have been breeding on the Norfolk Broads and other wetlands such is the scarcity of the Otters preferred natural fool , the Eel, in them now. I also know people who have had their aviaries attacked by Otters (caught on camera) but luckily the Otter has not managed to get in to it.

A good friend of mine locally owns a pool of approximately an acre in size. He lost 4 large carp (30lb+ each) to Otters 18 months ago, and it has cost him over £10,000 to put an Otter proof perimeter fence in and another £3000 to replace the fish with smaller ones of the same genetic strain. His pool is an acre in size, imagine perimeter fencing a lake a lot bigger with the scale of the task as well as the cost of the materials!!

I don't want to put an unsightly fence around the pond to the height where an otter could not get over it, nor run an electric charge around it.

Van I agree with you on all points and we need to learn to work with them not hunt or trap them , it was man who poisoned their water ways hunted them to near extinction in the first place
It was man who farmed mink and allowed escapee's who predate on fish just as otters do and do more damage to nesting birds than them
It was a group of idiots from the ALF who let loose hundereds of them in the East of the country where your birds are:MAD: mink love birds and eggs Otters prefare fish but will take the odd egg .
It was again the idiots from the ALF who released farmed wild boar into the wild here in Devon and also in the East of the country , we dont have preditors that will take them down in this country anymore now they are churning up valuable farm land and even parts of Dartmoor (this is what I mean by idiots they dont see the damage that can be done they just see cute furry creatures)
Now with the wild boar they have to be shot on sight way to go ALF.
I'm in no way saying that otters dont predate koi or farmed fish but we need them in this country to keep down those forgein invaders we were talking about in another thread , they also help to keep mink keep mink numbers down and as a marker for good river conditions
Here in the South West and also in Wales there have been releases of beaver into the wild both managed and accidental and it is only now we are starting to realise their worth to waterways trees etc
We had a trout farmer who was a member of our koi club so I know what those lakes are like they are un-naturally heaving with fish "heaven to the the Otter and very Man Made".
In the olden days man worked with nature not excluded it Otters included , they manage it in the US so why not here ?
Those farms and ponds can be protected against otter predation as can our own ponds we have to protect otters against us Man
We have a waterway not far from us with otters in weve seen no sign of them , we do however see Egrettes and herons so what do I do shoot them for flying over our pond , they have yet to come back.
We have a nest of rare Perigrine Falcons near Plymouth that has to be protected not for egg thieves but pigeon fanciers who have managed to poison them on one occaision hense the protection who gives them the right to do that not the law of the land thats for sure because what they did was illegal ???
It is man who is changing the wild and when the wild encroaches we wonder why ?
I know you like your fishing as well as your fish keeping so next time your out there with your rod and line think the Otter likes fishing too and he was there first
For Our members in the US/Canada etc ALF stands fo the Animal Liberation front a bunch of nut cases that have even been involved in arson a possible murder and the stealing of a dead body from a church graveyard to further their aims In 1989 they attacked The Debenhams clothing Store here in Plymouth it was a massive fire that took out the entire store and risked the lives of dozen's firemen tasked to put the fire out (sad sad people)

Dave

 

[VanDiesil]

Dave, the "escape" of the Mink from the farms was done by Animal Rights without any thought to the consequences as you rightly say. Mink are by nature one of the laziest predators as they hate to expend energy in catching a meal and would rather eat sick, maimed or ill fish, or as you say eggs or chicks in the nest, rather than chase down healthy prey. The main issue with the Otters is that they target the largest of the fish and instead of eating all the meat, they eat the bloodiest organs such as the heart, liver and kidneys and leave the rest for scavengers (unless the carcass is found first and disposed of in a decent manner). Some of the fish that have been had from private pools or lakes have been in excess of 30 years old! If the Otters were purely wild and not been hand reared (as the vast majority of the released animals were by the EA and the Otter Trust or whichever groups were involved), then I don't think the problem would be as bad as it is. They have no real fear of humans, that is the problem. They are apex predators and only humans in the UK are above them in the food chain, so they are going to breed and there is not enough natural food left in the natural waterways to sustain them, hence why they are moving to alternate sources including garden ponds. The Cormorants have already raped the rivers of the smaller silver fish such as Roach, which leaves only the larger fish for the Otters to prey on now such as the large Barbel, Bream, Chub, etc. The Environment Agency won't restock the rivers in any numbers even though they have plenty of silver fish stocks in their rearing lakes (very few man made fisheries want smaller silver fish nowadays).

I remember seeing a video somewhere (might have been on someone's phone) that was taken in the entrance of a Tesco supermarket in Rugby, Warwickshire, of an Otter in the ENTRANCE FOYER in broad daylight with people pushing trolleys in and out of the store (until they stopped to look at it). If they are becoming that brazen, they will end up like urban Foxes (which we have thousands of here in Leicester) that have no fear of humans whatsoever and will happily wander past people walking in the street like a domestic cat would!

A friend showed me a video he took on his CCTV system at his lake in Devon of a pair of young Otters trying to get through his fencing. Even though it is electrified and was on (he tested it the next day himself to make sure it was working!), they had no fear of the electricity at all and kept going back to the fence to try to dig under it (he thought about it when fitting it and placed the mesh at an angle 5 feet out from the outside edge of the fencing).

Can you imagine the uproar if Otters were on the Salmon runs in Scotland where the Royal Family pay literally thousands for a single days angling? Game fishing is of very little interest to me (I see it as an Upper Class activity), but because a problem does not affect the very top of society, the lower classes are left to fend for themselves.

If only Otters could be trained to only eat the invasive non-naturalised species that inhabit the waterways, then most people would be happy until those stocks are depleted. It will never happen though.

 

[Dave 54]

Dave, the "escape" of the Mink from the farms was done by Animal Rights without any thought to the consequences as you rightly say. Mink are by nature one of the laziest predators as they hate to expend energy in catching a meal and would rather eat sick, maimed or ill fish, or as you say eggs or chicks in the nest, rather than chase down healthy prey. The main issue with the Otters is that they target the largest of the fish and instead of eating all the meat, they eat the bloodiest organs such as the heart, liver and kidneys and leave the rest for scavengers (unless the carcass is found first and disposed of in a decent manner). Some of the fish that have been had from private pools or lakes have been in excess of 30 years old! If the Otters were purely wild and not been hand reared (as the vast majority of the released animals were by the EA and the Otter Trust or whichever groups were involved), then I don't think the problem would be as it is.
They have no real fear of humans, that is the problem. They are apex predators and only humans in the UK are above them in the food chain, so they are going to breed and there is not enough natural food left in the natural waterways to sustain them, hence why they are moving to alternate sources including garden ponds. The Cormorants have already raped the rivers of the smaller silver fish such as Roach, which leaves only the larger fish for the Otters to prey on now such as the large Barbel, Bream, Chub, etc. The Environment Agency won't restock the rivers in any numbers even though they have plenty of silver fish stocks in their rearing lakes (very few man made fisheries want smaller silver fish nowadays).

I remember seeing a video somewhere (might have been on someone's phone) that was taken in the entrance of a Tesco supermarket in Rugby, Warwickshire, of an Otter in the ENTRANCE FOYER in broad daylight with people pushing trolleys in and out of the store (until they stopped to look at it). If they are becoming that brazen, they will end up like urban Foxes (which we have thousands of here in Leicester) that have no fear of humans whatsoever and will happily wander past people walking in the street like a domestic cat would!

A friend showed me a video he took on his CCTV system at his lake in Devon of a pair of young Otters trying to get through his fencing. Even though it is electrified and was on (he tested it the next day himself to make sure it was working!), they had no fear of the electricity at all and kept going back to the fence to try to dig under it (he thought about it when fitting it and placed the mesh at an angle 5 feet out from the outside edge of the fencing).

Can you imagine the uproar if Otters were on the Salmon runs in Scotland where the Royal Family pay literally thousands for a single days angling? Game fishing is of very little interest to me (I see it as an Upper Class activity), but because a problem does not affect the very top of society, the lower classes are left to fend for themselves.

If only Otters could be trained to only eat the invasive non-naturalised species that inhabit the waterways, then most people would be happy until those stocks are depleted. It will never happen though.

Again I agree with you Van The otter trust in Devon have a strickly hands off approach to their otters and they hardly ever see a human we dont get many reports of otters devestating fish stocks or koi ponds infact the only ones I've read about were up north.
Perhaps fear of humans should be part of the release program (no on second thoughts the ALF might find out cant have that can we) joking apart perhaps what they need to do .
As to the enviroment agency they are as much use as a "fart in a chocolate factory", just look at the damage they have caused to the Somerset levels by not dredging you have t have fully working water ways that includes nature i;e fish insects etc its the mark of a good river so they should be restocking as they go along.
The truth of the matter is its our own Government thats at fault with all these cost cutting exersize's each and every year, if they allowed these departments the money and manpower to do things then perhaps just perhaps we can strike a natural ballance again here in the UK .
The do gooders should also be silenced "oh you cant dredge there it has cadisfly larva etc living in it" , well when they used to dredge and hey guess what there were still cadis fly larva etc so there was no harm done back then
My knowledge of waterways stems back to when I used to go out with my old man to pay the wages of the workers who maintained our waterways back then
Another reason you havent touched upon for the lack of the smaller silver fish such as Roach etc is over extraction of water from our rivers of privatised water companies .
I'm not trying to mitigate what the otters do my friend far from it but they do have a right to life and to live in our rivers all that is out here is a natural ballance and thats all .
Having Done my Army Canoe instructors course in Scotland on the river Spey which is a rich mans salmon river all I can say to you there my friend is its always been that way I mean they still poison birds of prey dont they even though its illegal and its the game keeper whotakes the blame even though we all know his laird ordered him to do it, so its one rule for us another for them perhaps we should question it.

Dave

 

[VanDiesil]

I think I might go to local safari park and ask them for some lion dung as apparently otters hate the stuff!!!!!!

 

[addy1]

I think I might go to local safari park and ask them for some lion dung as apparently otters hate the stuff!!!!!!

I have heard of men peeing all around an area to keep out certain animals not sure if it works with otters.
Let us know if it works!

 

[RobAmy]

Here you go, we rent her out by the hour

 

[RobAmy]

I have heard of men peeing all around an area to keep out certain animals not sure if it works with otters.
Let us know if it works!

Not sure if I want to view your live feed

 

[addy1]

Not sure if I want to view your live feed

lol we don't have animals that are scared of pee. They are just plant munchers.

 

[talal101]

Not sure if I want to view your live feed

hahahaha, this gave me a good laugh!