World's Only Captive Hairy-Nosed Otter Gets New Home

photo by Dmitry Azovtsev

http://www.daphoto.info

June 18 of 2008, the one of the few remaining hairy-nosed otters was given a new home. Dara, rescued when his mother was killed by a fisherman, was put into a wildlife center in the Phnom Tamau Zoological Garden and Rescue Centre, in Cambodia, with a blessing by Buddhist monks.
These otters live in seasonally flooded forests. Cambodia reserves nearly a quarter of its land for conservation, unlike neighboring countries, whose habitat has been lost in logging and agriculture.
The hairy-nosed otter was believed extinct until 1998. Today it lives only in some areas of Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Sumatra, and is the world’s rarest species of otter. Otters are killed by the illegal international fur trade, taken as pets, or killed to use in traditional medicine. Fishermen kill otters, because the otters can break their nets and traps to steal their catch. Also, climate change could cause a change in the water flow, so that the otters could lose more their habitat in the flooded forests. Hydro dams on the Mekong already block some of this water.
Conservation International and Cambodia’s Fishery Administration are working to extend the Kampong Prak fish sanctuary at Tonle Sap Lake for otter habitat. CI researches and monitors the otter population at Tonle Sap, trains law enforcement rangers there, and promotes awareness of the otters through education and discussion in schools and communities. A captive population was started to fight the species’ extinction, but Dara is only the first. They still need to find him at least a wife.
CI has been researching Cambodian otters from 2006, and reviewed the hairy-nosed for the red list of endangered species, and succeeded changing its status from data deficient to endangered. This will make the otter a higher priority in protection.

-Černa Kočka