Otters

The latest edition of Tiggywinkle's newsletter arrived today. Tiggywinkle's, or St Tiggywinkle's, is the UK's first and leading wildlife hospital and whenever I need to do any wildlife research I go there to do my homework. Last time I went there to the remarkable Les Stocker, who has run the place from the beginning, he had a dressing on his hand. He'd been to pick up an injured badger and take it back to the hospital. Now, the dangerous thing about an injured animal is that it doesn't know you're trying to help, it just knows that it's hurting and vulnerable. For that reason Les was wearing thick protective gloves, but the badger had still managed to bite all the way through.

They must have gone through a lot of gloves this winter. The floods meant that animals were quite literally washed out of their homes, including a number of otter cubs. Two were found wandering along the road with no sign of a mother, and a third was clinging to a bridge in a swollen river.

However much the staff might want to cuddle these babies, it's important that the otters learn to behave like otters. Two of these otters had no problem with that. They chomped down fish like there's no tomorrow, they'd have chomped the nurses, too, given a chance. The other would only take milk from a bottle. She had sharp little teeth and wrecked a few bottles before she worked out that, actually, you know, fish is nice.

They now have their own little otter holt by the river, enclosed enough to be safe. Before long they should be back in the wild, but in the meantime they are in the best possible place. St Fingal's?