Rare video footage shows family of otters playing in the River Wharfe at Bolton Abbey

Heart-warming footage has been captured of a family of otters playing on the Bolton Abbey estate in North Yorkshire.

The estate's head river keeper filmed a mother otter and two pups swimming south down the River Wharfe today.

Visitors to the historic attraction near Skipton are told to look out for otters - but it is rare to see three of them at once.

Water pollution and habitat destruction have seen British otter populations decline significantly since the 1950s, but reintroduction programmes have enabled their numbers to begin to recover.