AN ABBEYVIEW pensioner woke up to find 15 of his prized fish killed by a mystery animal.

Walter Strachan (69), of Almond Road, told the Press about the “distressing” morning, on 26th September, when he discovered 15 of his 11-year-old fish outside their pond with their heads ripped off and chewed.

Mr Strachan believed a roaming mink was to blame, however, Scottish Natural Heritage suspect the fish may have been killed by an otter.

He said, “I was very distressed to wake up on that morning and find my fish which I had been looking after for a long, long time scattered around the garden with their heads chewed off.

“Some of these fish were really big and were my pets as well – I am getting older now, I may never get to see fish grow so well again.” Mr Strachan had been nurturing the six ghost coy fish, some of which were around 12 inches long and weighing up to 2lbs, and nine large goldfish for more than a decade alongside neighbour Alan Ramsey, who also lost his fish in the same way the next night.

Mr Strachan continued, “It went under the net covering the pond and took out every single fish and left them around the garden – it is a great shame.” Iain MacLeod, of Scottish Natural Heritage and manager of their Hebridean Mink Project, said, “This sounds more like otter to me.

“Mink would, in general, catch as many fish as they could, often lining them up, then remove them to secret feeding dens to consume later. Unless the mink was disturbed, the fish would simply have disappeared.

“Otters, on the other hand, are much messier and will be physically capable of biting the entire head off a 2lb carp, unlike mink which generally do not bite the heads off anything.

“To protect ponds from predators of any kind a solid, well-fixed netting of a reasonable fine mesh is required, 1-1.5 inches would be best.

“If protection from otter predation is the requirement, chicken wire would not be suitable because they would chew straight through it. Weld mesh of a reasonable wire thickness would be required.

“Otters are a protected European species so the only option is to try and protect the pond by denying access. Any interference with the animal, its resting dens or holt is illegal.”