Residents praised after otter rescued from underneath a car in Salisbury
It travelled around the city overnight
Residents who live in Queensbury Road in Salisbury who came to the aid of an otter underneath a car there have been praised.
Wiltshire Wildlife Hospital's Marilyn Boyes Korkis says she wouldn't have been able to capture the animal if it wasn't for those who helped.
On November 5th, the charity received a call saying an otter had been spotted in Bishopdown Farm.
When they got there the light was fading and it ran off into the bushes before they were able to get to him.
They then received another call at 9am the following morning saying the animal had been spotted underneath a car in Queensbury Road.
When they arrived, people living by managed to help by blocking any exits the otter could have escaped out of before they eventually got the juvenile male into a crate.
Marilyn then took him back to the hospital and gave him some water and food.
He was quite dehydrated when they got back and had a few scratches.
A couple of days later he was then given to the Otter Trust who are caring for him.
Marilyn told Greatest Hits Radio:
"The first one was a failed catch of the Otter as it was on the move and it was late in the day, so the light wasn't particularly good and it was mobile. So my husband went out to that call and caught the tail end of it going and disappearing through the bushes and that was on Bishopdown Farm. Consequently, I received another call in the morning 9 o'clock in the morning and that was to say there was an otter under a car in Queensbury Road.
"Obviously when you go to something like that you have know how you're going to do it and because it was mobile my fear was you just sort of get down on your hands and knees and then you go to get it and then it would just shoot out the other side. So there were quite a lot of residents of Queensbury Road there and I just asked for a bit of help with some padding to put around the bottom of the car so that we could block off all exits. I had a front opening cage so I put that at the back, another resident went and got a brush and we sort of funnelled him into the front opening cage, but I couldn't have done it without the residents, they were amazing.
"We don't specialize in otters here, but obviously we see a few. To me it didn't look too bad. I knew it must have been in some sort of trouble to end up where it was and when we got it back to hospital it was incredibly dehydrated and took a long drink. So as far as I could see in my own first observations, there's a few little cuts and scrapes, but to actually get mobile from where it was to Queensbury Road unscathed was nothing short of a miracle."