‘Emotional and horrific’: volunteers ‘live’ as Somerset animals to study wildlife risks

‘The whole point was not to go out and see an otter but to be in the world as if you had taken that imaginative leap into otterhood, and see what happened.’ Photograph: Richard Robinson

What does a kestrel make of the dog sniffing in the long grass below? Why does an exhausted salmon pause before a weir? How will an otter experience the rumble of a passing train?

Eighteen people have spent six weeks swimming, slithering and soaring as otters, salmon, earthworms, red deer and kestrels in an attempt to better document the risks for wild animals in our human-dominated landscape.