Otter cub saved

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Lake Vyrnwy is beautiful ......

 

 

 

Otter cub saved after mother dies

 

 

 

 

The otter cub has befriended another at the sanctuary

An orphaned otter cub is being reared at a specialist sanctuary after its mother was knocked down and killed by a vehicle on a country lane in Powys.

The dehydrated and starving cub was picked up by a good Samaritan close to its dead mother's body at Lake Vyrnwy nature reserve, near Llanfyllin.

She was found by a member of the public near the village of Four Crosses near Oswestry.

The cub was taken to an RSPCA centre in Cheshire then onto one in Hampshire.

After being given a clean bill of health at Stapely Grange wildlife centre, she was fed a milk supplement and a special fish soup to help her gain weight.

A week later, she was well enough to be transferred to the New Forest Otter, Owl and Wildlife Park near Marchwood, Hampshire, where she has been paired up with another otter orphan.

This will help prepare her to be released back into the wild when she is about a year old.

Staff from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) said the cub would have starved to death because she could not feed herself.

Otters, which can swim at 12 km per hour underwater and can travel for up to 400 metres before surfacing for air, are listed as an endangered species.

'Good recovery'

Robert Scrivens, a supervisor at RSPCA Stapeley Grange Wildlife Centre in Nantwich, said: "The cub had lost about a third of her bodyweight when we took her in.

"She was quite weak but is now making a good recovery.

"The otter cub now has a good chance of survival and she will be looked after for between nine months and a year, until she is ready to be released back into the wild, hopefully near to where she was found."

He added that the cub was found at Lake Vyrnwy, a nature reserve in north Powys.

The cub, believed to be between nine and 12 weeks old, will be released back into the wild when she is older.