This year’s Animal of the Year is the common otter (Luther Luther,) announced by the Estonian Theriological Society.
According to the society, the common otter population has recovered in Estonia after large fluctuations in abundance. “An otter living in a body of water testifies to the fairly good ecological condition of the neighborhood, while the disappearance of the animal indicates the deterioration of the living environment,” the company noted.
To see an otter in the wild you have to be lucky: it is a cautious animal with good hearing and a good sense of smell. If you are patient enough, you can instead meet him while waiting calmly on the bank of a river or during a boat trip; Even footprints in the snow or excrement on a rock give clues to the presence of the animal. An otter moving on land is easy to recognize because there is no other animal like it. On the other hand, an animal swimming in water can be confused with a beaver or muskrat.
The range of the common otter is quite extensive, covering much of Europe and Asia, but the abundance of this widespread species decreased considerably in the Baltic Sea region after 1960. For this reason the otter was included in the international red list as a species at risk of extinction and since 1975 it has been among the species of the third category of protection in Estonia. From today we are prohibited from hunting this species.
In nature there are few species that hunt otters, so the state of the population depends largely on the quality of the habitats. In Estonia these mainly concern inland water bodies and their immediate vicinity. The quality of oarfish habitat is influenced primarily by land reclamation, construction activities and environmental toxins. Furthermore, entering sluices, sewers and drain pipe mouths, fishing nets, hooks and beaver traps can also be fatal for the otter. As the road network expands, you can see more and more otters killed under the wheels of cars on the roads. Population size is also influenced by various environmental factors such as winter food availability, drought years, and the competitiveness of mink.
Since the threats to the species are numerous and this is a good indicator of the state of water bodies, the otter is monitored annually.
“The abundance of the species in Estonia amounted to only 300 individuals, but in recent years almost 2,000 animals have been estimated and the species has reached even larger islands,” commented Remek Meel, an otter specialist and member of the Estonian Otter Society. Theriology. . “The otter is doing quite well in Estonia at the moment, but we can still endanger it due to our carelessness, which is why it is necessary to constantly monitor the population here,” Meel added.
Since 2013, the animal of the year (more precisely a mammal) has been elected. The cooperation group includes the NGO Animal of the Year, the Estonian Society of Theriology, the Estonian Society for Nature Conservation, the Estonian Hunters’ Society, Tallinn Zoo, Nature Calendar and the Estonian Nature Museum.
2024-01-02 15:14:00
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