What's the problem?
We are.
What we have done: (Human Interaction) As stated before, the otters' fur is one of the densest of all animals. This means two things. The first is that we want it. Illegal otter poaching is one of the main causes of population decrease among this species and is what initially put it on the threatened/endangered list. As the graph on the left illustrates, the hunting of otters has not stopped, despite attempted legislation (The sharper among you may have noticed that the graph lists Indiana as the area that the trapping takes place, and since I already made a point of saying that Southern River Otters only live in South America, there's no way this could be the species referred to in the graph. The sharper among you would be correct. This graph is not a depiction of the hunting of the Southern River Otters specifically, because no such graph exists. Because Southern River Otters have been hunted so extensively and into such a small habitat, no reliable direct studies on the Southern River Otter can be found. This is the same reason why a population estimate is impossible to make; we just can't find them.). The second issue with their dense fur is that it holds in more than the fur of other species. For this reason, the bio-accumulation of toxins is a massive issue for all river otters; it hits them on two fronts. On one hand, they are apex predators, so they get the most heavily concentrated level of the toxin there is in an ecosystem. On the other, their fur will absorb the toxins in the water, compromising the integrity of their fur and its ability to resist heat. A person so much as touching a Southern River Otter can get them killed by hypothermia because the oils in our hands hurt their fur. Now imagine what a toxin like mercury could do. Finally, the biggest slayer of Southern River Otters, as I have alluded to, is habitat loss. It's a story you've probably heard time and time again, but it rings true for no species more than it does for this one. People need more places to live; thus, we move into wilderness areas. We need paper, so we cut down trees; we want to put up a hotel, so we drain the nearby river; we want to put all out trash somewhere, so we make lush forests into landfills. This has backed the Southern River Otter into a tiny sliver of land, where they now have to compete intensely for dwindling food, land and other natural resources. "But Zack," you may cry, "That picture you showed on the last page gave them such a big habitat! How could they be endangered when they have all that?"
Surprise. I lied. The last graph was intentionally out of date/incorrect (It was from wikipedia *shudders*). Here's where the population actually stands now. You see that infinitesimal* speck of land? The entire remaining wild Southern River Otter population lives there.
Not quite a spacious animal reserve, is it? * (no, the play on words from the mathematical definition of this word was not intentional :) |
What will happen next: (Species Prognosis) As I said in the paragraph to the left, we can't create a perfectly accurate depiction of where the Southern River Otter population is now because of the lack of confirmed information or sightings. However, based on indirect reports and deductive reasoning, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature has created a percentage-based estimate of the population in the coming years. Due to the aforementioned culmination of factors, a graph of the Southern River Otter population would look a little like this:
(I apologize for the mild ambiguity, but this is as accurate a population graph as can be made.) The ICUN estimates a >50% reduction in the population of the Southern River Otter over the next 30 years, primarily because of habitat loss, making them Endangered. Due to the fact that the main factor that is driving the population down now is competition related to habitat loss, this decrease will be temporarily exponential, but will become logistic. There will (hopefully) be a point, where the Southern River Otter population dips below the carrying capacity for the tiny speck of land to which they have been confined. At that point, the population will likely stabilize, because they are no longer affected by the density dependent limiting factor of competition. This factor is going to repress the population so drastically that other density dependent limiting factors aren't really going to have a noticeable effect.
Despite the fact that the species is plummeting population wise, animal conservation agencies are doing everything they can to save it. Organizations such as the International Otter Survival Fund are raising both money and awareness for the plight of these guys worldwide. As they are on the Endangered list, the U.S. among other countries such as Chile and Argentina have made it illegal to hunt or even harm this animal. In addition to these two, various clean water acts across multiple countries has made the pollution of water by various toxins illegal. Yes, it is our fault that the Southern River Otter population is where it is now. However, there have been success stories before. By employing methods such as these, the Northern River Otter was brought back from the brink of extinction. If we are willing to give it the effort, the same can happen for this animal too. |