The Burgess family and the otter

Katy Burgess lives in London with her older sister Charlotte, her brother Ben and her mum and dad.

It’s a busy household with two bathrooms – and there’s always somebody in the bath!

Katy looks on the WWF website (wwf.org.uk). She learns that Britain’s rivers are in danger because people are using more and more water. She also learns that this is likely to get even worse in the future, because the number of people in the UK is growing.

She decides she’d like to do something to help, as rivers are home to her favourite animals – otters.

Katy looks into lots of different ways you can cut down how much water you use at home. Using the WWF website, she finds out that a running tap uses six litres of water a minute and that a typical bath uses 80 litres of water. Her family are really surprised to learn this and agree to try to cut down on the water they waste.

Katy’s mum and dad ask their water company for a water meter and they discover that the family used to use 1000 litres of water every day!

Now the Burgess family turn off the taps while brushing their teeth, take shorter showers and have put a water butt in the garden to catch the rainwater to water the plants.

If everybody makes some small changes to the way they live (like the Burgess family), our rivers have a better chance of being healthy. That means the otters are more likely to have a secure habitat for the future.