The photo was taken by Graeme Pryce at the Bullshole early one morning and forwarded to me as an Otter by Bryan Reagan.
Although not the best of photos it clearly shows a Mustelid Mammal of some description.
My first impression was a Mink, on size, colour and face shape but these could be due to light quality and photo clarity.
The animal in the foreground is a Husky dog.
As I was not 100% on ID I loaded it to a Mammal Society web page to see if anyone could conclusively ID the species.
Results so far are Otter or Cat (most votes so far), Mink, Rat and even Guinea Pig.
One comment possibly sums it up: “It's not possible to conclusively identify the animal from this photo. There's a hint of otter about it, but also a (slightly stronger) hint of domestic cat. When confronted with an inconclusive image like this, people tend to see what they want to see.”
Otter has been seen around the Bullshole area and also Mink and Domestic Cat. I do not go for Rat, so draw your own conclusions.
Definitely an otter I see them often in Goring and have hours of camera trap footage.
ReplyDeleteAnother vote for definite Otter. Totally understand the difficulty of ID from photos sometimes but this is fairly conclusive and I worry about some of the answers others have given!
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