You don't often see an otter these days in Irish rivers and lakes, but they are still around: "reasonably stable" is the official verdict, though not so numerous as they were a decade or two ago. As for Britain, there has been a disastrous fall from the time Henry Williamson wrote his splendid book Tarka The Otter. That was published in 1932, and it is heartening to a fan to discover in 1999 that the first two Dublin bookshops phoned had at least one copy (Penguin) of the book. This comes to mind because of a story in an English newspaper that Tarka is a godsend to the tourist industry; for the area of England where Williamson's book is based is marketed around the world as Tarka Country. It is known also as the land of the two rivers, Taw and Torridge, where the otter lived and was hunted. And visitors-to-be are told that the places he described often remain unchanged. Now, unfortunately, a field in the centre of the Devon village where Williamson lived, Georgeham, may be taken over by a housing development and a car park. Williamson lived there from 1919 and though he later moved to Norfolk or somewhere else in the east of the country, he was brought back in 1977 to be buried in the churchyard. Not all of the 450 inhabitants, according to The Daily Telegraph, are Williamson fans. Some say he was arrogant and eccentric, and then, too he was resented for joining Sir Oswald Mosley's fascist movement. He wrote another famous book, Salar the Salmon, set in the same two-rivers part of Devon. More, he wrote two series of novels and many, many short stories, the latter mostly about the world of wild animals and birds.
When did you last see an otter? There used to be a family on the Borora, not far from where the Moynalty Steam Threshing Festival takes place. One was found dead about three years ago, and Gerry Farrell, the king of the river, so to speak, has not seen one for years. It must be nearly a decade ago that a woman saw a mother instructing her brood on the details of hunting in the same river. Some people object to writers attributing human traits or instincts to animals. But Williamson was a dedicated observer of nature and all its creatures, and many young people grew up on Tarka and his other works and are grateful to his memory. The otter, of course, is protected. It's some time since otter-hound packs existed here.