Er...don't you think we 'otter' say grace first...?

While male otter Ned barely pauses for breath before tucking in to the celebration fish cake, partner Thai (left) clearly decided that the occasion deserved a little more reverence as she appeared to put her hands together and ‘say grace’ - a traditional prayer of thanks given before eating.

Resident Asian short-clawed otters Ned, Thai and their four children, Muna, Nixie, Musa and Rod were given the fishy cake as part of celebrations to mark WWT Martin Mere Wetland Centre’s 35th anniversary in Lancashire this week.

Over the last 35 years, Martin Mere has welcomed over 5.5m visitors as well as over 300,000 school educational visits. To mark the occasion, a time capsule was buried on Monday (1 March) with pictures from staff and visitors included illustrating Martin Mere today as well as what the centre could be like in 50 years.

The land for WWT Martin Mere was purchased in 1970 by Sir Peter Scott because of the numbers of wintering waterfowl using the site, in particular the pink–footed geese from Iceland and the Bewick’s swans from Russia. The land was derelict and used for intensive agriculture purposes and it took just three years to turn the site around to open to the public in 1975 to become a site of international importance.

One of the people that helped to do this was Andy Wooldridge, who progressed to become Centre Manager in 2007. Andy said: “I am enormously proud of how Martin Mere has developed over the years. At the start we didn’t even have a coffee shop as adults came with their packed lunch to watch the birds from the hides. Since then we have grown to offer an amazing award winning wildlife experience and day out for families, adults, children and couples. There are too many changes to talk about but some of my proudest moments have been when we started to breed greater flamingos in the 80s and purchasing new land, developing it from farm land to wetlands.”

There have been many wildlife changes over the years but the most notable has been the increase in pink-footed geese from 30,000 to 100,000 in Lancashire, avocet increases from just four to 88 on the mere in 2009. Numbers of Bewick’s swans have declined but whooper swans from Iceland have increased from literally none in 1970 to almost 2,000 today. Martin Mere also now has mammals, including beavers and the otter family – both of which are proving very popular with visitors!

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