otter eating my koi

[seabassi]

Hello everyone, has anyone had issues with otters in their pond i cant catch him he cleaned out my entire pond over the winter, i thought he was gone so the other day i started with new koi I bought 3 , 6 inch koi and 10 hours later GONE only scales left, I put a trap out last night and nothing, I am thinking of a electric fence any thoughts? I do not want to buy any more Koi yet , and I don't want a 4000 $ water garden
HELP thanks

 

[AlexandraDanielle21]

Hello everyone, has anyone had issues with otters in their pond i cant catch him he cleaned out my entire pond over the winter, i thought he was gone so the other day i started with new koi I bought 3 , 6 inch koi and 10 hours later GONE only scales left, I put a trap out last night and nothing, I am thinking of a electric fence any thoughts? I do not want to buy any more Koi yet , and I don't want a 4000 $ water garden
HELP thanks

Hello. Sorry that you lost your fish, animal can be a pain when it comes to outdoor fish keeping. I was just wondering if you have actually seen the otter, or if you are assuming that it's an otter? If you haven't seen one, your problem may become more serious, as the culprit could be a raccoon. In which case, saving your pond is going to be a lot more trouble.

 

[seabassi]

otter

hello actually I did not see the otter , but prints in the snow indicate otter, also whatever got my koi in the winter went under the ice, and this time I have plastic tubes for them to hide with small rocks in the tubes and yesterday the koi were gone and the rocks were out of the tube, the strange thing is over the winter I did not find any bones or pieces of fish and not even a scale , with over 30 koi gone, and stis time just a few small scales with no bones or blood they just vanish, I do have a small stream in the back of my house about 300 ft away, and my pond is deep, 3.5 ft ? what else could it be?

 

[jlk]

Although I know this wont be the most attractive option but have you considered netting it once your sure the otter is out? I had to resort to this for a heron problem. They also have motion activated sensors to deter animals but electric may be your best option as I am not quite sure how else to keep a water loving animal out of the water.

 

[dragonfisher33]

fencing the pond should work, it's not going to be pretty but at least it keeps the critters out of ur pond

 

[Darylb]

We had Problems with birds watching my granddads fish so we put a net over the pond it didn't look to bad and the frogs and stuff could still get in there

 

[Arklatex]

You can put up sonic animal repellents that are cheap and effective. They will keep out just about any mammals, but if you have outside pets (dogs, cats) it will drive them crazy...

 

[Tetra1990]

What about a large plastic owl or two? Netting over the pond works good.

 

[Alspond]

I have a fence around one pond and it keeps the otters out.
We see otters once in a while but they don't come inside the fence.

Trapping and shooting is not a viable solution unless there is only one otter.
Another will just come in a few months or a few years.

We have an aluminum fence with puppy picket that comes up about 18"
Works great. Rabbits and quail can pass through.

Al