Guardian: I love otters. I recall my father's excitement at seeing one glistening on a rock beside the sea on the west coast of Scotland in the summer of 1982. When I lived in a cottage beside the river Usk in my 30s, I used to rise before dawn in the hope of glimpsing the resident otter bitch teaching her pups to fish. Even now, I still get a thrill stumbling across a fish carcass, the debris of an otter's dinner, rotting on a riverbank.
I was surprised to learn recently that otters are now so numerous...