National Geographic will be streaming a new documentary about an unlikely bond between a man and an otter in Shetland.
Billy Mail met Molly, a starving pup, in 2021 when he saw her jumping off a pontoon into the sea near his Shetland home. Mail wanted to see how close he could get to her before she fled. But it turned out that Molly had no intention of running away.
She was starving and alone, Mail said. “She had a lack of fear that was really interesting because otters are normally pretty scared. I think it was just desperation. She needed food.”
But even after she regained her strength and was fending for herself, Molly kept visiting the Mails and became a “breath of fresh air” in their lives.
The unlikely friendship is the subject of a documentary that shows the daily interaction between Mail and the pup. Charlie Hamilton James, a wildlife film-maker, was a regular visitor to Shetland as a photographer for National Geographic. When he found out about Molly and her adoration for the Mails he immediately got in touch.
The documentary premiered in March at the South by Southwest festival in Texas, and has since won an award at the Wildscreen festival in Bristol. It is now nominated in several categories at the US Critics Choice documentary awards.
Mail and his wife, Susan, moved to Shetland in 2018 after living in Aberdeen for 20 years. Susan was more hesitant about Molly than her husband, who as a native of the island was used to the local wildlife, but she confessed that the otter charmed her way into her heart … and her shopping bags.
“When you turn around and she’s rummaging in your shopping bag, and you open the doors of the car to get something out and you find her sitting in the back, it’s quite endearing,” she said.
The couple allowed a camera crew to live with them to capture Molly’s visits to their garden. Susan said she is not usually an emotional person but viewing the final cut of the documentary moved her: “It was nothing short of phenomenal, so very emotional … I cried.”
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Billy and Molly: An Otter Love Story will be available from 14 November on Disney+, and will air on 15 November on National Geographic
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