Ballari: They are tiny creatures, bobbing in and out of the Tungabhadra river and sunning themselves on the rocks that abut the river. While they are a tourism attraction, they are also easy game for poachers and now under threat from pollutants flowing in the river. Weighing just about 2 to 6 kgs, the oriental short-clawed otters, also known as the Asian small-clawed otters, are the smallest otter species in the world and are endangered.
For long the otters were killed by Bangladeshi immigrants living in Sindhanur taluk of Raichur, reveal wildlife activists. Specialised poachers of otters and turtles, they went unchecked until the trade in otters was busted in 2012. But the racket still continues.
Waking up finally to the threat the creatures are under, the state’s Department of Forest, Environment and Ecology, declared an area of 34 km downstream of the Tungabhadra river as an ‘Otter Conservation Reserve’ through a gazette notification last July.
On Saturday, a drive to clean the Tungabhadra in Hampi begins, ahead of plans to finally declare the reserve, an otter sanctuary.
