Belfast based Quercus Consultants has been awarded 129,981 Euros ($171,050 USD) to develop and manage the otter survey in Ireland.  The study, which includes details of their population and diet patterns is expected to conclude in March 2012.  The otter has seen a  decline in the population in Ireland since the 1980′s .  It is protected by the EU Habitats Directive .

Lutra lutra was once found in significant numbers in many regions, including streams and coastal plains.  It has disappeared from  areas around the Jezreel and Zevulun valleys, but has remained stable in a region stretching from the sources of the Jordan river to the Harod and Beit She’an valleys further south.  The survey was conducted by the Society for the Protection of Nature  in cooperation with researchers at Tel Aviv Universiry, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Migal, a technology centre in Galilee.

A project to lure otters back to the uplands of Bolton in the UK has helped United Utilities earn a reputation as one of the world’s most socially responsible companies.  The  water company is building otter friendly quiet zones of wet woodland at Wayoh reservoir.  The creation of ‘otter havens’ is just one example of good work featured featured in the company’s annual Corporate Responsibility Report. The company now features in the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index .

Weymouth’s first otter safari sold out days before the event. Run by the RSPB a two hour night walk through the Radipole lake  reserve the group tried to find the elusive otter.  The otters kept out of the group’s way, but the leader found fresh otter spraint (scats) and tracks, and a passage through the water reeds.

The South River Federation was thrilled to report that river otters have returned to the South River after being absent for many years, due to habitat loss. The Federation have been receiving river otter sightings throughout the river
Any sightings report to jennifer@southriverfederation.net

Anglers have been told to clean up their act in Stamford, UK, after an otter was found dead, tangled in discarded fishing wire. Volunteers clean up the river Welland every weekend and often find  discarded wire.  The Environmental Agency has warned that otters, water voles and native crayfish are all protected by law ,and and their accidental demise could result in a £5,000  fine or 6 months in prison.

Found on a Herefordshire Industrial Estate, the little otter cub was found weak, underweight and disorientated, and believed to be four or five weeks old. A local wildlife hospital collected the otter, and gave him a specially made fish smoothie. He has now gone to Scotland to live with other orphaned otters and will be released back into the wild

Otters have returned to the river Mersey for the first time for 30 years, until recently the river was too polluted to sustain a large range of wildlife, but a major clean-up operation led by the Mersey Basin Campaign, has seen wildlife return to the river.

North American river otters have been spotted on several occasions at the pond in Ashland, Oregon, since it was built in the 1970′s but a group of 6 have been seen during the past month. A few species of pan fish and goldfish which have been illegally introduced to the small pond seem to be drawing the otters here said Mark Vargas, the Rogue District wildlife biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife

A victory for Nearshore Ecosystems.
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) designated 360 square kilometres of California coast up to a depth of 6 meters as critical habitat for the black abalone.
This is great news for not only the black abalone, a species whose numbers have declined rapidly in the last few decades and is listed under the Endangered Species Act, but also for the entire Californian near shore ecosystem . Designating habitat as critical goes beyond the normal protections afforded an individual species listed under the Endangered Species Act. By protecting the species’s habitat and designating it as critical, the NMFS is protecting not just habitat currently occupied by black abalone but also potential habitat into which the species can expand and recover. This is a huge step forward safeguarding the marine ecosystem for not only the black abalone but for the sea otters, also listed under the Endangered Species Act, who have long since been blamed by fishing groups for the rapid decline of the black abalone. The NMFS claimed that sea otters were absent from southern California, during the widespread decline of black abalone in that region. The current last foothold for the black abalone directly overlaps with the current range of sea otters. One of the only places in southern California where black abalone populations have been increasing is also the only place south of Point Conception where a growing population of sea otters exist, indicating that black abalone populations can recover and remain stable in the presence of sea otters.