About Us

Your guides are Terry Holmes and John Campbell who have over 50 years experience watching otters, a combined guiding experience of 25 years and over 15 years experience consulting to nature film makers. This makes the Shetland otters team the most experienced otter specialists in Shetland.

The Shetland Otters team: John Campbell, left, and Terry Holmes right.

We have in total around 50 years experience of watching otters in the wild, most of which has been spent in Shetland. We have helped to carry out otter population surveys for governmental agencies such as Scottish Natural Heritage and also for multi-national companies.

We have carried out surveying work for the formulation of Environmental Impact assessments and have just completed an 18 month study into the possible changes in otter diet for Scottish Natural Heritage.

For over 15 years we have been consultants on many wildlife films, specifically for obtaining otter footage. We have worked with various international film companies including the BBC programme, Wildlife On One, "Otters - the Truth" presented by Sir David Attenborough. We were consultants for SpringWatch 2006, "Nature Of Britain", hosted by Alan Titchmarch and our latest project the BBC2 series "Simon Kings Shetland Diaries"

Terry Holmes has contributed to the scientific paper "Changes In Otter Numbers In An Isolated Population", specific to the otter population in Shetland.

John Campbell and Terry Holmes are both members of the IUCN Otter Specialist group.

Testimonial

"It is through Terry Holmes that our love of otters really began and he helped to start us on the road to discovering otters for ourselves by sharing his knowledge with us. We are now experienced otter watchers and photographers in our own right, but Terry is always there for us, to give pointers and information on what the otters are up to, as well as other wildlife around the islands of Shetland. His supply of knowledge is endless - and he's good with cameras too!"

- Liz Machin and Charis White