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

Volume 7 Pages 1 - 43 (February 1992)

IUCN/SCC OSG Group
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From the Chairman's Desk

Greetings for 1992. Last year was a momentous one for the Otter Specialist Group and with more hard work this year should be even more fruitful. Our Action Plan was published and distributed to many international agencies, biologists and to all of us. Also in 1991, we revised out list of members and sent invitations for the next triennium. Invitations mailed out in August should have been received by everyone and responded to by now. Soon you will all receive an updated address list to help you correspond with other OSG colleagues.

Dr Padma de Silva has graciously agreed to be the Asian Coordinator for our group. You can contact her at the Department of Zoology, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. We are looking for a small grant to cover Padma's mailing expenses to enable her to begin an Asian otter newsletter, and to start planning an Asian otter workshop in Malaysia. If you would like to help her with these projects, she would be delighted to hear from you.

Dr Claudio Chehebar, our Latin American Coordinator, has translated the Latin American portion of the Action Plan into Spanish and he has a number of copies to distribute. IF a Spanish version of this portion of the Action Plan is useful to you in your own efforts, please contact him. Claudio is also seeking a small grant to cover his mailing costs and to plan a future Latin American otter meeting. To help him with these projects, please contact him at Admin, dc Parques Nacionales. Intendencia del Parque Nacional, Nahuel Huapi, 8400 San Carlos de Bariloche. Rio Negro, Argentina.

All of our coordinators still have a limited number of extra copies of the Action Plan to distribute. It is very important that these get into the hands of governmental and funding officials who can help us conserve otters. We do not have copies to waste and these should only go to officials that you are already working hard to persuade. Please given your coordinators the names and addresses of these officials, a short synopsis of your dealings with these individuals so far and a ghostwritten individualised letter for your coordinator to mail with each copy. For contacts in Latin America and Asia, please also send me a copy of this information, as I can cover these mailings from the Marine World Foundation until other funds are found for these efforts. You can also send me drafts of letters to write to officials on your behalf and I would be happy to customise these letters as well. The more material we can get into the hands of power, the more action we can create on the behalf of our programs and conservation efforts

For the rest of this triennium locating funding for our group's efforts and for individual otter projects is our first priority. Now that I have finally obtained my PhD from the University of Florida and am back again full time at the Marine World Foundation, I can focus my attention on fund-raising efforts. Please contact me at the Marine World Foundation, Marine World Parkway, Vallejo, California 94589 or by Fax 1707-644-024,] with your fund-raising ideas and project proposals and I will see what I can do to help. I look forward to working with all of you to rnake a better world for otters in 1992.

Dr Pat Foster-Turley, Chairman

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