The Lost Gardens of Heligan- Cornwall Coastal Otter Project (CCOP)

An excellent turnout to the Lost Gardens of Heligan for our Cornwall Coastal Otter Project workshop. Arranged jointly with 3 Bays Wildlife and the team at Heligan (who also organised the excellent catering) 50+ people turned up from across the South East of the County to hear about the wonderful world of otters and learn what to look for when collecting spraint samples for the Project. Ian McCarthy shared lots of his amazing video footage of otters on the Fowey estuary – a great chance to observe some fascinating natural behaviour and hear about the field craft involved in filming these charismatic animals without disturbing them.

Rebecca and Tyler ran a hands-on spraint analysis workshop introducing participants to the microscopic study of spraint contents which we hope will allow us to work out what ‘our’ otters are eating, especially when they are close to the coast. We will be repeating this workshop further west in the not-too-distant future so watch out for the trailers – this one sold out very quickly.