Scores of fish, including valuable prize winners, have vanished from lakes, according to Angling Essex. Anglers blame increasing numbers of otters preying on fish and thefts of large specimens by criminal individuals and gangs.

Nick Watkins, chairman of Angling Essex, said in the past decade, it had become a “major, major problem”. Thom Airs, of Angling Times, said a carp in a lake “was an easy meal for an agile otter” but increasingly cormorants were settling inland to feed.

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