Smooth-coated otters or Lutrogale perspicillata are found throughout South and Southeast Asia. They are classified as Vulnerable according to the IUCN Red List, with populations still decreasing. These otters prefer habitats like lakes, large rivers, swamps, coastal mangroves, sloping banks with vegetation. They also inhabit dams, irrigation canals, and shallow rice fields. The otters need ample vegetation for escaping predators, and to dig holes deep into the ground to live in. They move into the water bodies for foraging or hunting. They are considered keystone species and play a crucial role in tackling the climate crisis.
Their primary diet comprises small fish, crabs, crayfish, frogs and other vertebrates. The otters use the bankside for activities like feeding, grooming, resting, mating which are marked throughout with spraints, that is, otter droppings.
In India, these otters are found in the Deccan Plateau, stretches of Beas, Sutlej and Ravi rivers and the Harike wetlands. They are gregarious in nature, and often live in large groups until they move away to find their mates and start a new group.
According to IUCN, smooth coated otter populations have reduced by 30 percent over the past 30 years. The main threat for Smooth Coated Otters is habitat degradation.
What threats do Smooth-Coated Otters face?
1. Residential and Commercial development: Many wetland areas are reclaimed in order to create space for human settlements. This includes development of villages, cities and towns thus destroying the otters’ habitat.
2. Agriculture and aquaculture: Wetlands and mangroves are often cleared for agriculture of annual and perennial non timber crops. This mainly includes the crops planted for food, fibre, fodder, fuel and more. The scale of farming is generally shifting cultivation.
Aquaculture involves hatchery fish being put into wild habitats, excessive fish being caught and kept in captivity which reduces the prey base for otters.
3. Climate Change – The increasing temperatures of rivers, streams and other water bodies are set to impact the otters. The water levels in some areas also reduce drastically during long term droughts thus impacting the otters’ dietary habits.
4. Energy production and mining: Mining and quarrying around the otters’ habitat reduces their ability to create dens and hide from predators. They also have a reduced area to spraint and this reduces the possibility for reproduction.
5. Roadkill: There is insufficient data on the number of otters that are affected by roadkill but there are records of it being a reason for otter mortality in India and Southeast Asian countries.
6. Biological resource use: Hunting and illegal take is a major problem when it comes to the Smooth Coated Otters. 5,881 pelts were confiscated from 1980 – 2015 with about half of these coming from India.
Logging and wood harvesting is also a problem. Trees are felled by people in nearby settlements for timber, fuel, fibre as their needs for natural resources are not fulfilled by government provisions. However, there is not enough data available to confirm the motivation behind this threat.
Otters are also killed by commercial fisherfolk as otters are seen as competition for preying on commercial fish species. Otters that get entangled in fishnets tend to drown.
7. Dams and water management/use: The construction of large scale hydroelectric projects involves collecting groundwater and construction of dams which causes habitat fragmentation and degradation.
8. Pollution: The type of effluents that are released into otter habitats are unknown due to lack of research . However, their presence from sand mining and stone quarrying industries have been noted. Soil erosion and sedimentation is caused by conversion of forest land into agricultural land. This initiated increased pesticide runoff into wetland areas. This affects not only the otters but also their prey base.
Social Pressures on Smooth-Coated Otters
1. Poverty – In most countries where the otters prevail, the problem of poverty has not been given enough attention. Rural development schemes do not provide adequate results thus, forcing people to be increasingly dependent on natural resources. Since most of these people resort to fishing as a key occupation, there is a reduction in prey base for the otters.
2. Demand for Otter products – Since the demand for otters’ products such as their pelt or them as a whole for food, or for medicinal purposes remains high, there is higher profit in participating in illegal take. Poverty also fuels engaging in illegal take thus, making the population vulnerable.
How are Smooth-Coated Otters being conserved?
In order to ensure that the population does not decline further some conservation measures that are being taken include:
- Identifying Otter habitats as Ramsar sites and creating protected areas. The first sanctuary dedicated to Otter conservation was started in 2016 at Tungabhadra Otter Reserve Sanctuary, Karnataka. Continuous work to better this reserve can be helpful to Otter conservation. However, it is difficult to control the Otters’ movement in an area making habitat management a primary concern.
- Habitat maintenance by paying attention to the type of vegetation present in the area, removal of invasive species, reducing human-animal conflict. Otter habitats need to be left untouched by any human activities to help the habitat and ecosystem recover.
- Sensitising the local communities to the importance of the species and educating fisherfolk to prevent accidental deaths of the smooth coated otters. People from the community can be trained to aid in ecotourism initiatives which would provide them with alternate sources of livelihood.
- Strict legislative action to minimise illegal take is required. The entire network of trade in otter pelts must be dismantled by tracking down the users and suppliers. Since otters are also bought and sold as pets, we need to gain more information about the exotic pet trade and its extent.
- Enabling local communities to reduce pesticide usage in agricultural fields to prevent pollution in the Otters’ habitat. Organic farming can be promoted in these areas and incentives provided to those who practise environment friendly farming techniques.
Conclusion
Smooth Coated Otters are important in the ecosystem as they keep the population of many fish species in check. Their presence also indicates a healthy freshwater ecosystem as they are very sensitive to pollutants. Working on conserving this species will also help in retaining habitats such as wetlands, mangroves, swamps and rivers which will in turn help in maintaining a diverse range of wildlife within the country.
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Written by: Adithi Raghunath