Otters - the Forgotten Victims of Wildlife Crime

Wildlife crime is rife in southeast Asia. There is a huge market for skins in Tibet, and especially in China. All kinds of animals are being hunted in huge numbers despite formal legal protection - people are aware that tigers, elephants, orangutans and bears are being taken, but enormous numbers of otter skins are also being found in each intercepted shipment of skins. For every tiger skin found, there are at least ten otter skins.

Otters are already under threat from wetland pollution, drainage, persecution as competitors and net damagers by fishermen, and hunted for food, and use in traditional medicine.

On top of this, middlemen hire out traps to hunters and guarantee a price for the skins, which can make a huge different to a poor fisherman living on a few dollars a week.

The scale of otter hunting is incredible: in one intercepted shipment alone (right, a single siezure by Chinese Customs Officers in Lhasa, Tibet), there were 778 otter skins.

In 2006, in Linxia, China, 1833 illegally hunted otter skins were openly offered for sale.

Law enforcement is patchy and largely ineffective - otters are supposedly protected in all these countries who are all signatories to CITES.

In January 2006, the Dalai Lama spoke out against the use of animal furs and stockpiles of wildlife skins were burnt in some monasteries. But the Chinese banned such events as they see it as a public demonstration of allegiance to the Dalai Lama. They have also made it compulsory to wear real furs at festivals and formal events with a penalty of a heavy fine or dismissal for a government official for non-compliance.

Traders say most skins come from India, where the otter is endangered and highly protected. But unlike the tiger and leopard it is regarded as “nobody’s child” and no-one seems to be concerned for its conservation and there is no programme for REAL protection. Otters have vanished from Kashmir’s Wular Lake area and Uttaranchal and due to poaching otters in India have been reduced to a few hundred in isolated pockets and they are rarely seen outside protected areas. Some otters are caught using leg-hold traps, whilst some poachers use specially trained dogs.

The shipments we know about are only the tip of the iceberg.... How many skins are getting through? Each skin is another dead otter. 

More information about the scale of illegal hunting:

• IOSF: Report to EU Standing committee 2-6 October 2006. Alarming Trade in Otter furs. (PDF 203 KB)
• Environment News Service:Indian Tigers Poached for Sizzling Black Market in Skins