Ripples on the River

A celebration of the return of the otter to the UK''s rivers and freshwater wetlands after a drastic decline in the twentieth century.

Ripples of excitement are spreading through Europe''s rivers. A generation ago, otter watching was a wildlife highlight restricted to remote coastal areas--otter populations had been decimated over the previous century by pesticide poisoning and habitat disturbance. But recent decades have seen the positive effects of determined conservation efforts to clean up our waterways, and now otters are returning and spreading throughout their former habitats.

One of the UK''s leading natural history photographers, Laurie Campbell, was delighted to discover otters on the Tweed, a river he has known all his life and the discovery launched him on a quest to create a photographic account of the lives of freshwater otters.

Two decades later, otter numbers have steadily increased, and new generations of otters in busier sites have beco