The online pet trade has emerged as a pressing threat to otters in Southeast Asia with a new TRAFFIC-IUCN Otter Specialist Group (OSG) study revealing hundreds of the animals for sale on Facebook and other websites over a four-month period. The Illegal Otter Trade in Southeast Asia, released today, revealed a high demand for juvenile […]
Tag: otter
Video: Two Hungry Jaguars Are No Match for This Plucky Otter
PORTE JOFRE, PANTANAL, BRAZIL – On a particularly hot afternoon last October, two jaguar sisters named Medrosa and Jaju went down to the river to drink. But before they had reached the waters of the Corixo Negro, a giant otter loudly voiced its displeasure. A top predator, the river otter is known to some local […]
POLL: Should Trump disband USDA Wildlife “Killing” Services?
Despite persistent outrage from the public, the U.S. government killed 2.7 million wild animals in 2016 — and almost 1.6 million were native wildlife, according to data released this week. That’s roughly five animals every minute. Even after scientific investigations by a team of ecologists cast serious doubts around the necessity of these killings, Wildlife […]
Austria flouts EU law to cull otters
Lower Austria is planning to trap and shoot 40 otters in the very near future. This is in spite of the fact that otters are protected by the European Union Fauna and Flora Habitats Directive. This is in response to appeals from fishermen stating that there are too many otters. The numbers quoted for that […]
POLL: Should the illegal otter trade in India be stopped?
A new TRAFFIC report sheds light on the intensifying illegal trade in Asian otters for their skin as well as the rise in illegal otter pet trade. India is a hotspot of otter poaching, according to a new report by TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network. Of the 167 otter seizures in South and Southeast Asia […]
How sea otters help save the planet
Charles Darwin once mused on the impacts that predators could have on the landscapes around them. In particular, he wondered – in On the Origin of Species – how neighbourhood cats might affect the abundance of flowers in the fields near his house at Downe in Kent. He concluded the animals’ potential to change local […]
2016 – The Year of the Otter
Otters are special animals – not only are they wonderful to watch but they are great indicators to a healthy environment. And yet all over the world they are being exploited for commercial gain and in some places hunted almost to extinction. Did you know that for every tiger skin found there are at least […]
First Pan-African Otter Training Workshop held in Tanzania
The latest Red List update by IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, has placed an alarming 12 of the 13 species of otter worldwide showing a declining population, with the North American river otter the only one shown as “stable”. Of those 13, Sub-Saharan Africa is home to three species: The spotted-necked otter (Lutra […]