In some parts of the world, seeing an otter is fairly common. These playful, active mammals are found near bodies of water, but even if you’ve never seen one in the wild, you may have seen one at the zoo, perhaps as part of a rehabilitation program for injured otters. (Though one infamous zoo otter was released into the wild and became an outlaw and a thief.) However, there is one species of otter, the smooth-coated otter, which has never been seen in a specific region of India despite the region having the proper habitat for it. That is, until a chance trail camera encounter changed scientific understanding.
Otters are fairly prevalent in India. The Eurasian otter, the small-clawed otter, and the smooth-coated otter are all found in the country. The smooth-coated otter is found across a greater area than the other two subspecies, but it had never before been seen in the area of the Nandhaur Wildlife Sanctuary.
A team of researchers was working in this sanctuary utilizing trail camera traps to analyze the tiger population of the area. On the cameras, they spotted not just one smooth-coated otter, but multiple. Their findings were published in the Journal of Threatened Taxa in cooperation with the Zoo Outreach Organization and the Wildlife Information Liaison Development Society. Titled, “First photographic record of Smooth-coated Otter Lutra perspicillata (Carnivora: Mustelidae) from Nandhaur Wildlife Sanctuary, Uttarakhand, India”, this study could have a massive impact on how the sanctuary will move forward with the otter find.
The smooth-coated otter discovery
The smooth-coated otter, going by the scientific name Lutrogale perspicillata, is considered a vulnerable species. It is found across multiple countries in Asia, including India, southwestern China, and Pakistan. They live in social groups of between 10 to 20 otters. They are nearly 4 feet in length and weigh between 15 to 22 pounds.
The research team working in the Nandhaur Wildlife Sanctuary were setting up camera traps for tigers when they spotted an otter in the wild. They weren’t entirely sure which subspecies they’d seen, and knew the smooth-coated otter had never been recorded in the area before. To investigate further, they searched for signs of otter tracks, scat, and evaluated the area they had spotted the animal. They then set up strategic cameras around these findings and waited for 10 days.
When they returned to pick up the cameras, they analyzed the images. Cameras at two of the locations captured pictures of multiple otters. Excited about what they potentially found, they showed the images to members of the Otter Specialist Group, part of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) that has been focusing on otter conservation since 1974. These specialists confirmed what the team believed. This was the first-ever recording of the smooth-coated otter in this region of India. It is always an exciting moment when a species is discovered, like the rare bird species reemerging in Britain.
The way forward for the smooth-coated otter
The study urges the Nandhaur Wildlife Sanctuary to take the smooth-coated otter’s existence in the area into consideration when managing the land. It specifically calls out the need to not disturb potential habitats around rivers, to take action to reduce soil erosion, and to maintain the fish population that the otters depend on. All of this will be vital to protect this already vulnerable species.
The study also points out that there is very limited information regarding the population of the smooth-coated otter species, but that the current population is expected to go down by 30% across the next 30 years. Major threats to this species of otter are mostly related to human population growth. Construction destroys otter habitats, pollution damages their river systems, and hunting activities harms their numbers.
Interestingly, this otter was thought to be extinct once before; in the 1980s, it was thought that habitat destruction and hunting had decimated this smooth-coated otter population. Fortunately, field surveys that began in 2007 confirmed it was still around. Generally speaking, species extinction due to human activity continues to be a problem around the world, so now, with a new otter population discovered, it is critical to conserve and protect this very elusive species.
