News / Ada the otter is thriving at last
A TINY otter cub is now thriving at a Shetland wildlife sanctuary after she was found running around a local pier at little more than a week old.
During an extraordinary day in November the SSPCA and Hillswick Wildlife Sanctuary received calls about four otters in trouble following a torrential downpour.
Two sadly died that day while a third disappeared up a drain on Yell never to be seen again.
All four were young and may well have been washed out of their holts by the rain.
Ada was found scampering around the pier at Voe whistling in panic for her mother who was nowhere to be seen.
Shetland SSPCA senior officer Ron Patterson collected her and brought her to Hillswick where for the last eight weeks she has steadily made progress and put on weight drinking a milk substitute.
“I have never had a day like that when we had calls about four different otters, it’s unheard of and you have to put it down to the dreadful weather,” Patterson said.
“One came from Lerwick and two from Mid Yell, one of which was in the middle of the school football pitch and the other had vanished up a drain.”
This weekend was a major milestone when Ada ate her first liquidised fish.
Jan Bevington, who runs the wildlife sanctuary, said: “We’ve been bottle feeding her since she arrived and wondered how she would take to the fish. After an initial hesitation there was no stopping her, she loved it. Hopefully now she will go from strength to strength.
“We’ll miss the bottle feeding, she has been such a joy to work with, but we won’t miss the sleep deprivation.
“Now we’re going to have to gradually wean her off human contact altogether so that when we release her she’ll be wild enough to thrive on her own.”
But that will not be for a while. Otters spend many months with their mothers, so she will probably stay at the sanctuary until the autumn.
Ada will be the first resident in the sanctuary’s new otter facility in a converted shed which has just been completed with funding from the SSPCA, Shetland Wildlife Fund and SOTEAG, the environmental advisory group at Sullom Voe.
When she is ready, Ada will move into an outdoor pen where she will remain through the summer after which she should be ready to be released at a suitable site.
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