lone otter - scratched @ SBWR 30Jan2014

The lone otter showed up again at the SBWR visitor centre pond at about 1.45pm. It swam around in the pond discovering the monitors around and in it putting the monitors on the alert for a nip. The otter was however not in the mood for teasing some monitors. It soon went up to the old sandbox and started rubbing itself on the ground and against the sand box sides. After about 10 minutes of this, it lay still beside the sandbox occasionally opening its eyes when passing visitors entering and leaving the adjacent path made too much noise. The visitors were however oblivious of its prescence until the otter was pointed out to them. The pointing out however encouraged noisy reaction from some visitors. The otter decided to move further towards the rear of the sandbox and caught a few zzzzs...occasionally rousing when the noise level generated by passing visitors bothered it.

Later at about 6.30pm, it was seen around the seawall mound opposite Platform 1. The low tide (about 0.3m) made it easy to catch fish. It caught a fish and quickly crunched into it for a few minutes before swimming around to the western edge of the seawall again diving underwater in the shallows looking for fish. It was watched over by some herons who were also looking out for dinner before the night's roost.

It was fortunate that the otter was at the western edge instead of the eastern edge of the seawall mound as a fisherman had laid a long driftnet from the eastern edge. The givewaway float, a plastic bottle tied to something below the water could be seen at the eastern edge.

*See note below.

The lone otter (very visibly a male) made its way up the seawall mound and rubbed itself against the granite rocks and enjoyed the sunset for a bit. A clear hairline could be seen at back of the neck. It looked as if the otter had been on the receiving end of a barber's razor blade causing it to loose some hair or skin even.

This hairline can be seen in the earlier video clip (from 00:37 - 2:35). It looks like a deep horizontal gash about 5 cm long had somehow been inflicted at the back of the neck.

The otter spent a few minutes on the seawall mound before cautiously walking off the mound. (This seems to be the same otter which was reportedly seen to have injured its left rear leg. This one was also seen to be limping similarly and presumably it was the same injured otter.)

Note :
*(Later at about 7pm, the fisherman was seen passing by in his kayak going westwards across the Northern side of Pulau Buloh presumably to check on another driftnet. Pulau Buloh lies within the area gazetted as a Nature Reserve but the fishermen don't seem to care that their nets pose a danger to animals of the reserve such as otters, crocodiles and shorebirds which may get caught in the nets.)
The driftnets used by these unlicensed fishermen have been documented to have a disastrous effect.
See : http://sgbeachbum.blogspot.sg/2011/07/rip-great-billed-heron-sbwr.html
and http://budak.blogs.com/the_annotated_budak/2008/10/crocked.html
If you do visit SBWR, and notice the fishermen's prescence, do alert the park officers.