IUCN/SCC Otter Specialist Group Bulletin
© IUCN/SCC Otter Specialist Group

Volume 19 Issue 2 Pages 62 - 110 (October 2002)

Note from the Editor
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First of all I have to apologise, but in the hectic moments before a Bulletin is finalised mistakes sometime happen. As some of you may have realised, I swapped the references of the two articles on Aonyx congicus in the last issue (IUCN OSG Bull. 19/1) by using <copy> and <paste>. Or was this a test of who was reading carefully? No - my mistake, and sorry Helen.
[Corrected in online version]

I would like to thank all those who sent me compliments; sometimes it is really a tiring job to produce the Bulletin, to find financial support, etc. I have to admit that I also get irritated now and then when I receive another final manuscript at the last moment, when once again the list of references in the manuscript have nothing to do with what is mentioned in the list of references (please check this before submitting a manuscript!), or when people that never contribute anything to the Bulletin start to send me e-mails about commas that are missing (no joke this happened!).

As I realised from e-mails, some of you have heard about rumours that, over the last months, there has been some irritation behind the scenes! This is not the place to discuss this but I am sure that any problems can be solved and that the persons involved have already made some progress in this. Some of these problems are related to the apparently never-ending story of otter reintroductions - an item that has already caused a lot of discussion in the past (see IUCN OSG Bull. 15/2 and 16/1), and it is still a hot item. In the light of these developments, the Conference 'The Return of the Otter - Where and How' (30th June - 5th July 2003, Isle of Skye) will be completely devoted to this theme and a range of invited international experts on otters and issues related to reintroductions (conservation, captive breeding, toxicology, genetics, veterinary aspects, telemetry, politics, ethics, etc.), will discuss the positive and negative aspects of this issue. The Proceedings, containing the contributions and overall conclusions, will be made available as soon as possible and Marcela Kucerova will report on the results and suggestions of the conference in Skye at the 4th European Congress of Mammalogy, to be held on July 27 - August 1, 2003, in Brno, Czech Republic, where the meeting of the European Section of the IUCN Otter Specialist Group will also take place.

Many thanks go to Adam Grogan, Silke Hauer, Roel Hoeve, Brigitte Komposch, Claus Reuther and Elke Staib, all of who provided information on recent publications. Kevin Roche (Czech Republic) again functions as a reader for those contributions that have not been reviewed by at least one native English speaker, whilst Alvaro Soutullo (Uruguay) and Lional Lafontaine (France) translated the abstracts into Spanish and French. I also have to thank the 'Otter Bulletin Team' for their continuing help, namely Hans van den Berg and Annemarie Gerritsen (Wageningen), and Els Hoogsteede-Veens and Erwin Hellegering of GRAFISCH SERVICE CENTRUM VAN GILS (Wageningen).

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