The South Island Otter - a Reassessment 129

The waitoreke, or supposed South Island otter, has remained a mystery for over a century; for, despite the authoritative evidence of Haast' (1877, 1879), some highly circumstantial early Maori accounts and numerous well-documented' and impressive claims of later sightings by' amateur naturalists, zoologists generally have been only too happy to dismiss the animal as a myth. An examination of much of the evidence was attempted by Wall (1926), but this was based on a very superlicial knowledge of the ecology of otters generally and, in any event, he was unashamedly arguing from a concJusion. A much more objective survey was made by Watson (1960), who was more guarded in his conclusions; but he. in turn, deliberately ignored all accounts later than about ]880 on the plea that they were probably based on sightings of various smaller introduced mammals. The present paper, besides recording some new material of more recent date, attempts a reassessment of the earHer evidence and suggests a theory which could account for the presence in New Zealand of a land mammal such as the waitoreke.