IUCN/SSC Otter Specialist Group Bulletin
©IUCN/SCC Otter Specialist Group
Volume 35 Issue 3 (October 2018)
OSG Group Members News
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New Members of OSG
Since the last issue, we have welcomed 6 new members to the OSG: you can read more about them on the Members-Only pages.
Ricardo Correa, Chile: I have studied Marine Otters (Lontra felina) along the coast of Chile for many years and work to persuade the authorities to take their protection seriously. I am currently working with them to develop a mitigation protocol for significant anthropogenic pressures on the coastal region affecting otters.
Sagar Dahal, Nepal: I am a conservationist in Nepal, currently surveying rangers in the Protected Area about the presence (or absence) and threats to otters in their working areas. I am preparing outreach material about all 13 species for use in Nepal. I am President of the Small Mammals Conservation and Research Foundation.
Sugandhi Gadadhur and Raghuneth Belur, India: : We are a husband and wife team of certified naturalists and documentary filmmakers. For the last two years, we have been following Smooth-coated otters in India’s only Otter Conservation Reserve along the River Tungabhadra, traveling across the river trying to understand the challenges that otters face. We regularly interact with the local fishermen and forest officials on how Otters survive here and what is needed to help conserve them. Over the next few years, we plan to document the Smooth-coated Otters in the Tungabhadra and hope to make a film about these otters, their behaviour and the challenges they face, like poaching, dynamite fishing, sand mining and hostile fishermen.
Taylor Gowin, USA: I am a student studying biology, and I hope to join a research team and study otters as my primary focus with other aquatic mammals as a secondary focus. Otters are my passion and I hope to be able to gain experience with them as soon as I can.
Alexandra Kahler, USA and India: Currently resident in Washington State, USA, I have done field research on African clawless otters in Malawi with Katrina Fernandez, and now intend to study smooth coated otters in Goa using environmental DNA. I also developed and moderate the Global Otter Community facebook page along with Carol Bennetto, Katrina Fernandez and Nicole Duplaix.