Otters hunting and catching crabs underwater in the seas around Shetland, UK

Underwater footage of a wild european otter fishing off the coast of Shetland, UK. You can see it catching crabs and a small fish. Otters are notoriously hard to film underwater, due to their shy nature and their behaviour underwater. As you can see from the clips, they dive down straight into the thick kelp and seaweed, using primarily their whiskers (vibrissae) to find food instead of their eyes. It’s hard to predict where they will be under the seaweed as the bubble trail is always a little way behind them. I spent a magical few hours watching and filming this female hunting. This particular otter is a very old female I have followed for years. Sadly it is now going partially blind but as you can see it doesn’t stop her catching. Due to her age and condition, her hunting behaviour has changed to small fish and crabs that are close inshore.