Tamar Otter & Wildlife Centre

Hidden away in the countryside of South West England you’ll find The Tamar Otter and Wildlife Centre. A real hidden gem, this Centre specialises in animal care and rehabilitation. The residents include deer, meercats, wallabies, chipmunks, rabbits, birds.. but most importantly, of course, otters! Rhys (whose parents run the park) was kind enough to answer a few questions for us.

The Centre was originally set up as the Tamar Otter Sanctuary in 1986, one of the Otter Trust’s three visitor centres at the time. For the first 20 years, the 21 acre-park’s primary purpose was to breed Eurasian otters to release into the wild here in Britain, in response to their near extinction in the 1950’s.

As the British otter population began to increase and stabilise, there was less demand for the Otter Trust to have three sites. The Otter Trust’s breed and release programme had been dormant for some time by 2006, so the park was looking tired in places and needed more than a lick of paint to restore and maintain it.

After being on the market for some time, my parents took over the centre in 2006, renamed the park Tamar Otter & Wildlife Centre and separated from the Otter Trust. My parents, my sister and I (we would have been 10 and 7 yrs old) moved down to Cornwall to find The Centre in need of some serious TLC. My Dad had been in the police for 20+ years, and my Mum worked in the courts and in childcare, neither of them had any experience of working with animals.

My parents have now been managing the park for 14 years, which has been a huge learning experience for us all (particularly early starts to go to otter release sites as a teenager were a challenge!) This has included playing with orphaned otter cubs in the bath, trying to sneak orphaned Muntjac deer fawns and Wallaby joeys into bed without Mum and Dad knowing. We also had the opportunity to raise birds of prey such as Snowy owls, Kestrels and Harris Hawks. So our weekends were pretty eventful, and I suppose quite unusual in comparison to most families.

Now The Centre rehabiltates and releases sick/injured wild otters and birds of prey, whilst providing forever homes for those too unwell to go back to the wild. The park also has Asian Short-Clawed Otters and a variety of mammal and bird species living in a large, open environment to help to promote wildlife conservation and The Centre’s goal; to reconnect people with wildlife in a busy modern world.

Our largest otter family has 14 individuals, Mum (Leah), Dad(Feet) and all their babies! We have 26 otters across 2 species. 7 Eurasian Otters and 19 Asian Short-Clawed Otters.

Other mammal species include: Muntjac deer, Fallow deer, Servals, European Polecats, Meerkats, Red-necked Wallabies, Harvest mice, Chipmunks, Rabbits.

Bird species: Owls (Snowy, Tawny, Barn, Little, European Eagle, Bengal Eagle, Great-Horned) Raptors (European Kestrel, Common Buzzard, Harris Hawk, Red-Tailed Hawk), Parrots (orange-winged amazons, yellow-crowned amazons, parakeets, cockatiels) Gouldian & Zebra finches, peafowl (coloured and white!), Guineafowl, Waterfowl, Quail, Chickens.

Poppy is our heinz 57 dog, she has been a dog to us but also a fantastic otter, owl, deer, wallaby and polecat, looking after many of our orphaned animals whether they were born at the park or in the wild.

The otters are predominantly fed fish, such as lemon sole, hake, whiting, haddock, john dory, wrasse. They also eat chicken, rabbit, eggs and ferret biscuits. For enrichment we will give them monkey nuts to help the waterproofing of their coats, and grapes because they’re like little otter-sized tennis balls, fun for playing!

On a few occasions we have gone in early (6/7am) and found an otter running around by the enclosures! After panicking and counting all our otters, it has turned out that a local wild otter has come in from the river parallel to the park, when our females are in season. Always causes a few scares! But, it’s great to know we have such a vibrant local population!