A WOMAN from Dorchester has spoken of her shock to discover a dead otter in a bush.

Sacha Oates, 25, was by National Trust property Max Gate on Sunday, February 5 with her friend and a dog when they discovered a ‘really flat, grey’ animal in a bush close to the Trumpet Major pub.

Sacha said their first thoughts were that it must be a cat and that they didn’t touch or move it due to it being dead.

The 25-year-old, from Dorchester, put a post in a Facebook community group to try and see if she could find the owner of the ‘cat’ and inform them.

She said: “It’s such an unusual place to find an otter so, naturally, we thought it was a cat and I just said, as a cat owner myself, I wanted to let people know in case it belonged to them. I put it in the Facebook group to raise awareness and we had one lady who thought it could be hers but that’s when we found it was actually a dead otter.

“I’ve only ever seen them in a sealife centre before so, yeah, it was a shock and I didn’t really know what we were supposed to do.

“I have tried to contact the Environment Agency about it and I think it’s a really good reminder to make people aware of who to contact when they find something like this because it’s definitely not something you see on a regular basis.”

Sacha was with her friend when she found out the ‘cat’ was in fact a dead otter and thanked those who gave her advice on who to contact.

She said: “Not everyone knows who to report it to, I certainly didn’t, so I think it is something we should be more aware of: I read elsewhere that a dead otter had been found in Weymouth too.”

It is not known how the otter ended up so far in-land: the River Frome runs about a mile north of Max Gate.

The Environment Agency has been contacted for comment.