Dead toad scare is down to gourmet otters

Following Carmarthenshire Wildlife Watch’s exclusive story on the dead toads in a Coastal Park pond, Carmarthenshire County have issued the following statement:

GOURMET otters are feeding on toads legs at Llanelli’s Millennium Coastal Park.

Some park visitors started pressing panic buttons on making the gruesome find of hundreds of dismembered toads around the Turbine Pond and other water features within the park.

They feared the toads had been poisoned because of a recent well planned Environment Agency operation to rid the MCP of the alien top mouthed gudgeon fish species there.

But this was dismissed because thousands of live toads continue to survive in and around the park’s water courses. The carcasses and toad body parts found had been carefully skinned or dismembered.

Rangers and environment officers were quickly able to determine the carcasses of hundreds of dead toads had been the victims of predators. Many large dog otters have been sighted in recent weeks. One is resident near Burry Port Harbour. Otter spraint has been found nearby and otter bite marks were found on the carcases.

Harbour master and MCP manager Rory Dickinson said: “The large numbers of toads at spawning sites in spring are an attractive food source to predators but their toxic skin is very distasteful and generally affords the toads some protection. It would appear one family of otters has discovered a way of getting to edible parts discarding the toxic skin.”

“The Environment Agency and biodiversity officers say resourceful otters and possibly even mink have been making use of this abundant food source.”

A council spokesman said: “Wildlife experts have suggested some otters have developed a method of biting the toad and pulling its hind legs out of its skin. The otter then eats the skinned legs with their nutritious muscles and moves on to the next toad to perform the same operation.”

“Some toads have been found with their skins pulled over their heads and just their skeleton legs protruding from their bodies.”

“There are large knots of toads about in mating mood and in the presence of a super abundance of food this is the most energy efficient use of the otter’s time to gain the maximum amount of food.”

“The evidence of mass-predation with hundreds of scattered toad body parts suggests that this is a hunting strategy learned by an otter family because the opportunity arises.”

“The kind of attack by otters on toads is not new. Ayr vets in recent years reported respect for otters on the Isle of Bute for their finesse and neatness of food preparation with all the passion human fine diners pay for in the preparation of frog’s leg for consumption.

“The vets said toad skin and some tissues were toxic and had an irritant affect so predators developed the technique of skinning the toad before eating the edible fleshy parts of their legs.”

A spokesperson for Environment Agency Wales said: “We have been made aware of a number of dead toads at one of the lakes at the Millennium Coastal Park. The dead toads show symptoms consistent with those commonly reported by otter predation.”

“Otters have been reported to target toads especially during the spring when they accumulate in large numbers to spawn.”

“Our officers continue to regularly monitor the sites we treated in January.”

“We are confident that this incident is not linked to our top mouth gudgeon eradication programme.”

We asked Darren Harries (Carmarthenshire Wildlife Watch) who broke the story for his thoughts on the otters, he said:

“I think its both mink and the otters. They’re feeding on the toads and also frogs as there is not enough fish in the ponds because of they have been poisoned.”

“I’ve put together a little video for the public where they can see footage of the mink, otters and toads.”

“The Council asked me for photos of otters so I”ve sent some in and I’ve told them that I’ll be spending some time down there to see if I can take some photos of the otters eating the toads.”

“I will be putting my hide up in the morning to see what is calling there, it would be handy if we (Carmarthenshire Wildlife Watch) had some camera traps, but as we are a new project, we haven’t the funds.”