A FAMILY of bold otters have been making a splash around a Lake District tourist hotspot.

And the mammals are so at ease with their human companions that one photographer has been able to take snaps of them from just three feet away.

Ashley Cooper, a professional photographer who lives five minutes walk from Waterhead Pier at Fisherbeck Park, has been snapping the friendly family for the last week. He said the family consists of a female, blind in one eye, and two cubs.

“Whether they actually live there (around the pier) or not I’m not sure, but they seem to spend an awful lot of time there. They’re very easy to get close to, which is really rare because normally at the first sniff of humans they go away.

“They’ve obviously just got used to the fact there are people there.”

An increasing number of tourists and locals have been watching the otters play and hunt around the pier at Ambleside Fish and Chips, according to Scott Cowap.

He owns the shop and nearby Wateredge Inn with his brother, sister and parents, and he has noticed more chatter about otters at his businesses.

“We’ve had a lot of people coming to the fish and chip shop because it is a fantastic viewpoint,” he said.

“They’re feeding just on the pier head and they like to play in between the boats because they’re a bit protected from the elements there. It’s just amazing.

“I’ve lived around here for 27 years and I’ve never seen anything like it.”

The Waterhead otters are an indication of their improved population since 1977.

Natural England research said that otters were found in just 5.5 per cent of sites surveyed 34 years ago. But in 2009-2010, that figure had boomed to 58.8 per cent.

“Otters can be seen in pretty much any water network in Cumbria now,” said David Harpley, conservation manager at Cumbria Wildlife Trust.

“People do see otters a lot more than they used to. They’re everywhere in the county and it may just be that Cumbria now has such a full population of otters that they’re going to places they didn’t used to go.”

He said a crucial reason for the otters’ success is that toxic chemicals such as PCBs and dioxins have largely been removed from several watercourses in the county. The toxins, which came from agricultural run-off, got caught up in the fat of eels, which are eaten by otters, and ultimately killed them.

Putting forward his theory for why the otters at Waterhead are so at ease with people, Mr Harpley said: “Possibly underneath the pier there maybe some sort of good holt (otter home) where they can go to. Then the cubs, with their being lots of people and noise, probably would have got used to being so close to people.”

To see more of the otter pictures, go to www.globalwarmingimages.net.