Otter Devours 200 Fish: Most of Koi Pond’s Wildlife Eaten During Norfolk, UK Family’s Vacation

When Alan and Linda Brown returned to their Norfolk home in mid-January after a vacation, they never expected that 200 out of 250 fish in their koi pond would be gone, supposedly massacred by an otter.

The Browns, both 60, told BBC that a neighbor contacted them during their vacation to let them know some fish were dead, but was too upset to explain how severe the problem was. The neighbor noted that some carcasses had been left on the garden pond's decking with their heads and tails intact, BBC reported. He cleared up the remains and kept silent, not wanting to ruin the couple's vacation.

The Wildlife Trusts told BBC that an otter or mink was most likely the cause of the fish disappearance.

When the Browns found out that majority of their pond's fish were killed, they were shocked. "We are both dismayed," Mr. Brown told BBC. "We had hundreds of fish in the pond - we had ghost koi, mirror carp, golden orfe and lots of goldfish.

Mr. Brown added that the 50 remaining fish had been removed from the pond, and the fish would be replaced, BBC reported.

Otters had never wreaked any havoc on the Brown's pond before. "We saw an otter about six months ago near the river and our friend had warned about them being in the area, but we'd never had a problem until now," Mr. Brown told BBC. "For the first six to seven years of being here, we never even had a net. It's just life I suppose, but more should be done to make people aware of the problems otters cause."

The otter population in the UK has gradually been on the rise -- they can be found in every English Country, following efforts to save them from extinction, as reported in an August 2011 BBC story.

Improvements in water quality, as well as legal protection, have contributed to their resurfacing, after their population drastically declined in England and Wales between in 1950s and 1970s.

"With all the flooding we've had recently, we are finding a lot of otters are coming further off the rivers and expanding their territory," Darren Tansley from The Wildlife Trusts told BBC.