Otter
Narrator Bill Travers
We all know there are otters in Britain. And we may have read Tarka the Otter or enjoyed the tame ones at the zoo and in Ring of Bright Water - but only a few of the most patient of animal watchers have ever seen a wild otter on its own river.
In reality, European otters are graceful, playful and beautifully adapted to an amphibious life. They're also solitary, very elusive and mostly nocturnal, which is why so few of us see them.
Also their numbers are threatened -the population is declining in Britain and the European otter is practically extinct in France, Holland and West Germany.
Philip Wayre is the exception as he .lives his life surrounded by otters of all sorts. And now he has even persuaded our British otters to breed in captivity. As a result of his work and that of a small group of dedicated naturalists, we can at last begin to uncover - and now even film - some of the secrets of the otter's life, hunting above and below the water and rearing its cubs in an underground holt.
Film editor BETTY BLOCK
Series editors ANTHONY ISAACS and CHRISTOPHER PARSONS (Bristol)