Check in to the otters holt-el!

From the archive, first published Monday 13th Feb 2006.

Otters returning to the Aire Valley are set to enjoy the type of riverbank luxury immortalized in Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows.

Conservationists are planning a `Bed & Breakfast' style stop-over to encourage the wander-lust mammals which had been `locally extinct' for a century until their recent return.

Volunteers at a wildlife reserve in Baildon struck on the idea when they were repairing bank erosion along the River Aire.

Although a pair of otters have been spotted in the river near Bingley's Dowley Gap, the playful breed are not a common sight and it is time to tempt them back, says Don Vine from the Wildlife Trust.

The work to build an otter holt will be carried out by the Friends of Denso Marston Nature Reserve who look after the three hectare site next to the car-parts factory in Otley Road.

Friends spokesman Andrew Clarke said: "The holt is a kind of chamber that we'll build into the riverbank with a series of pipes in and out for the otters. It's a stop-over for them on their way up and down the river. I'm not sure they'll stay long enough to settle and breed there but it'll be somewhere safe for them to spend the night."

Bradford Council has praised the Friends for helping to re-colonise otters in the Aire because it fits in its own bio-diversity plan to boost the district's wildlife.

Councillor Anne Hawkesworth, Executive Member for the Environment, said: "I am delighted by this move by Denso Marston, as part of a joint venture with the Council's Countryside and Rights of Way Service, to help otters re-colonise the River Aire. Otters returning to the River Aire indicates that the water quality is improving."

The Wildlife Trust's Don Vine agrees water quality is getting better thanks to environmental schemes and groups such as the Friends.

He said cleaner water would bring back more fish and the fish would bring back more otters. "Over the past 100 years or so the chemicals and pollutants that have been getting into our rivers have been driving the wildlife away, now it's getting better they are starting to come back."

Earlier this month English Nature, the Environment Agency and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds announced a consultation on a 50-year project to secure wetland areas and rivers as well as protect the wildlife they support and they are looking for other groups to join them.

Denso Marston's nature reserve, which opened 15 years ago, is already home to roe deer, tawny owls and a thriving dragonfly colony as well as other birds and beasts - last year it even attracted a flying visit from the rare Mediterranean night heron.

Mr Clarke added: "Since the Friends group began last year it's gone from strength to strength. More people know the reserve exists now and they are coming to visit it."

Elly Andison, Biodiversity Technical Specialist for the Environment Agency, said: "The enthusiasm to encourage wildlife along the river is fantastic. We are thrilled that the improvement in water quality is allowing the otter to move back into areas where they have been absent for years."

She said the last records of a strong otter population on the River Aire were taken 100 years ago.

"After that there was a massive population crash and they became locally extinct," said Mrs Anderson. She added that pollutants in the water from agriculture, combined with earlier otter hunting, had killed off the population in many places.

But a 2004 survey in Yorkshire and the Humber revealed an 86 per cent increase in the number of locations where otters could be found. Yorkshire Water has schemes to improve water quality.

Project manager Rob Bainbridge said: "Esholt treats waste from more than 300,000 homes and industrial waste equivalent to a population of a further 442,000 people. The site will undergo considerable developments and reconstruction to ensure the continued protection of the environment in the future.

"This is the first phase of a much bigger, regional programme of work, which will eventually see more than 400km of river water quality being improved."

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