Western People & the otter blunder

Our local paper, the Western People, was kind enough to republish one of our photos of an otter. However, the photo went with a rather different story then the one told by the person who asked us to send the photos to the Western.

The otter in the photo had managed to it make over land from the river Moy in Ballina to part of the Killala Road more then ten minutes from the river. After it ended up in our back garden, we were told it was earlier spotted coming in this direction. An otter, possible another, was also spotted near St Patrick’s church, and returned to the river. We were told that their home on a bank of the Moy was interrupted by some kind of construction.

In the Western, the story most likely followed another otter, which was seen on the other side of Ballina and the river, at Riverside Drive, on the Quay Road. The story (image not published online) centred on “Ollie the otter” biting a man as he was “coming back from town when the otter ran out in front of him. After a time he realised it was not a cat and he got his camera”.

Sorry, now, that’s just not on. Who would an innocent reader think had taken the accompanying photo? Without any photo credits, obviously the person who was bit.

We have little interest in being credited; we sent the image to the newspaper unaccredited on request of a third party. But publishing the photo with this story is downright misleading. It’s not an amazingly important story, but if one can’t get it right at a simple level…

Let’s get this clear, the photo in question was taken in our back garden by this writer (not the person who got bitten), with three of our dogs in the back ground, and not on the other side of town from where the “Ollie the otter” apparently bit someone.

The above image, differs from the one published in the newspaper, we have the original images of the otter and used a slightly different close-up section here then what we sent them.