An otter has been pictured in the River Irwell on the border of Salford and Manchester in what is a very rare sight.
The animal was spotted underneath the Trinity Bridge close to the Lowry Hotel. It was videoed amongst rocks in the river and shared to social media by user @nicolotomus.
Otters have been spotted in rivers and waterways in Salford in the past, but sightings this close to the city appear to be very rare. What was spotted by Nic could in fact be a mink, but it is almost impossible to tell from the clip, and they are easily confused.
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Otters tend to be a paler brown than mink and also bigger, while mink will often have a distinctive white spot under its chin. Spotting a mink is a rare sight in itself in the Irwell.
A previous otter sighting in December 2020 in a similarly central area was described as a 'big deal'. Mike Duddy, a project manager with the Mersey Rivers Trust, said then that otters and other fish being spotted had become more common as the condition of Manchester's waterways had improved.
This was especially true for the decade since 2010 after years of work to clear up the polluted waterways of the city. This pollution had led to years of declining otter numbers in Greater Manchester.
However, more otters had been spotted over the last 10 years as the condition of the area's heavily-industrialised rivers had improved significantly.
