Your report on the river otter’s return to New York City’s Bronx River after a century’s absence (19 August) is genuinely wonderful news – proof that patient ecological restoration works.
But it sits uneasily alongside a fact rarely mentioned: New York state still permits the trapping and killing of hundreds of river otters every year, purely for recreation.
State wildlife data shows an average annual toll of around 900 otters, sometimes over 1,100, killed in body-gripping and leg-hold traps designed to crush, hold, drown or kill by force.
Otters are recognised as an indicator species – their presence signals genuine ecosystem health.
There is no overpopulation crisis and, with the fur trade in serious decline, barely an economic rationale left. What remains is the recreational interest of a small minority of trappers.
It was this same unregulated trapping that nearly eliminated otters from New York in the first place.
We shouldn’t celebrate a species’ recovery in the Bronx with one hand while permitting its violent killing elsewhere in the state with the other.
This article by Peter J McKosky was first published by The Guardian on 20 August 2026. Lead Image: ‘Otters are recognised as an indicator species – their presence signals genuine ecosystem health.’ Photograph: Robin Loznak/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock.
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