Content
Skip to Main ContentAccessibility Help
The Current

Vancouver 'using rainbow trout and different baits' to catch koi-killing otter

An otter has found its way into the koi carp pond in Vancouver's Chinatown; we check in on efforts to catch it before all the fish are gone.

The city has set six traps around a downtown pond to catch the rogue river otter

CBC Radio ·
An otter sits in a Chinese garden.
An otter has moved into the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden in Vancouver. (Sadie Brown/Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden)

Read Story Transcript

The Vancouver Park Board has hired a wildlife trapper to capture a river otter that has been menacing a downtown koi pond.

The otter found its way into Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden in Vancouver and has been decimating the population of koi fish in a large pond on garden grounds.

"[The trapper has] been using rainbow trout and different baits. He has different scents to try to capture the otter," Vancouver Park Board Director Howard Normann explained to The Current's Anna Maria Tremonti.

The traps that have been set are humane, in the hopes that the otter can be relocated safely. (Vancouver Park Board)


"With the pond the way it is, it's not like it's a little pathway that the otter is using continuously. This otter is all over the place, so with the six traps we're hopeful, or [the trapper is] confident that we will get the otter."

They plan to catch the creature alive in order to relocate it to the Fraser Valley where it can enjoy a more hospitable habitat.

One of the otter's victims. (Vancouver Park Board)

The mammal was discovered more than a week ago, and so far, it's estimated by garden staff to have killed 10 fish.

City crews plan to lower the water level of the pond today to remove the remaining koi and send them to the Vancouver Aquarium for safe keeping until the predator is caught.

Click 'listen' near the top of this page to hear the full conversation.

Produced by Vancouver Network Producer Anne Penman and The Current's Alison Masemann.

More from this episode