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20 Years of IOSF – Bringing People Together IOSF has always felt that if progress is to be made then we have to work together. As a result we have held several conferences and workshops both in the UK and abroad. The first conference we ever held was our Wildaid conference, which later became known as Wildcare. In1988 the initial British Wildlife Rehabilitation Council meeting

was held in London and we decided to follow this up with a similar meeting in Inverness. So in 1991 we saw the start of an annual series of conferences which went on until 2003. We then agreed that it was impractical to hold several meetings in one year and so it was decided to rotate the conference between Inverness, London and Cheshire. And so it continues. Over the years we have had various speakers on all sorts of subjects to do with the rescue and rehabilitation of wildlife and also some practical sessions. In 2000 we held our first otter conference on

Skye on the topic of toxicology and the problems of pollutants and otters. People came from all over Europe to discuss this and share information. This was followed in 2003 by another conference on Skye on “The Return of the Otter in Europe – where and how”. Over 100 delegates attended and presented information on how otters are doing throughout Europe. In most countries the situation has improved but all is not yet rosy, as we know. Through these two conferences we have built up a network of great otter scientists who can be called on to share their expertise. In 2007 we attended the IUCN Otter Specialists Group meeting in South Korea and this really spurred us on to do more in Asia with regard to the illegal otter fur trade. In early 2009 a workshop was held in Cambodia to train students and rangers to do more otter work. This was extremely successful and one participant from Pakistan has since gone on to set up the Pakistan Wildlife Foundation. Just as the workshop was ending a fisherman found a Hairy-nosed otter caught in his fishing hooks and handed it over to Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Centre. He could have earned about $200 for the pelt but he had heard about the otter conservation work and wanted to help.

Paul presenting at Wildcare, Inverness 2008

e-Update 27, March 2013

Delegates at IOSF Conference, Isle of Skye, 2003

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Clearly this is an effective way of getting otter conservation going and so we wanted to hold more such events. This leads us to our recent workshop in Indonesia. One participant at the Cambodian event was Aad Aadrean, from Sumatra, who has become an important otter worker in Indonesia and is now a part of the Indonesian Otter Network – but you will read more about this later on! We clearly need more such Asian training workshops and will soon start to plan how we can get things moving in another part of Asia. News of Otters in Care With Paul and Grace away in Indonesia the otters were left in Janet and Helen’s care. The otters always know when it is someone different coming to the pens and do their very best not be seen. However, there has been another visitor to their pens and we’re not quite sure what it was but it has done an awful lot of digging on the outside of the fence during the night. Thankfully this seems to have stopped now and we suspect it may have been an otter. Bubble and Squeak are doing well, one

of them being much bolder than the other. Willow, being a little older,

seems so much bigger than they are. He recently developed an eye infection, but after a week on medication from our vet, Alan Sime, he has recovered well.

Ness is very actively digging in her pen in an attempt to get out and this is a sure sign of how ready she is to be put back in the wild. For the most part, the weather has been very cold and dry and unfortunately this means that the otter pools are drying up. We have linked hosepipes together up throught the croft to get the water to them, otherwise the otters would no doubt become caked in mud. Luckily we have escaped the heavy falls of snow that so many other parts of the UK have suffered.

Bubble or Squeak?

Willow

Ness

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If you would like to contribute to help with the ca re of the cubs you can send a cheque marked “Hospital” on the back or you can don ate online at www.ottershop.co.uk Indonesia Workshop We are just back from Indonesia and it was brilliant. I don’t think we have ever been to any workshop or conference which was more positive and has resulted in action

so quickly. The Indonesian people are so warm and welcoming and we immediately felt like part of the family. We were amazed to learn that there are over 200 indigenous languages but everyone speaks Bahasa Indonesian. Of course we don’t speak Bahasa but we quickly learned “berang berang” – the word for otter!

The classroom sessions were held in Bogor, which is about a 2 hour drive from Jakarta. The first day was opened by the Deputy Minister for Forestry, Bupak Agus Sutito, who welcomed all the delegates. Paul then gave an introduction to the work of IOSF. This day was designed for government officials, students, lecturers, rangers, and staff from the National Parks and gave a broad overview of otters, their ecology and importance in conservation. Throughout Asia, otters are largely overlooked and conservation efforts are focused on the big mammals, such as elephant, tiger and rhino. It is the same in Indonesia and there is almost no baseline data on population and distribution for any of the four otter species. At present only the Eurasian and Hairy-nosed otters are protected in Indonesia and we therefore wanted to encourage the government to give full legal protection to the other two species – the Asian small-clawed otter and the smooth-coated otter. The Ministry of Forestry is responsible for all conservation including otters and they had asked us to come up with recommendations for otter conservation. The last session of the day saw the Indonesians drawing up these recommendations which would be presented to the Ministry the following week. There were also some members of Otter Lovers Indonesia who keep otters as pets, most of which have been wild caught. Most pet otters are Asian small-clawed but recently Reza Lubis, from Java, and Aad Aadrean, from Sumatra, have also found Hairy-nosed otters being kept as pets. Often the animals are kept in very poor conditions and so they die, and another otter is simply caught as a replacement.

Paul’s opening talk (with Deputy Minister of Forestry, Bupak Agus Sutito)

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Clearly this is having a significant impact on wild populations and an important session stressed that catching otters for pets has to stop. Ruth Davidson, who had cared for Nessie in Jakarta, discussed the problems of keeping an otter as a pet and Grace gave a presentation on how to care for otters so that they remain wild and can be released back to their natural environment. The next two days were to teach people how to do otter fieldwork and education/public awareness. Unlike Europe where we only have one species of otter, in Indonesia there are four species and so it is important to be able to identify them and know their specific habitats. For any conservation programme to be successful it must be founded on recent sound scientific data obtained by trained professional researchers, and these students will be able to start collecting the data we need. We also looked at problems such as the conflict between fishermen and otters.

We then moved to Cikananga Wildlife Rescue Centre. Although this is only 100km away it involved a drive of five hours - well actually it was more of a crawl than a drive because of the horrendous traffic! When we finally arrived we were given a tour of the facilities and met Nessie, Lenci and Merci. Unfortunately Nessie is now on his own as Ciko, who was with him sadly died, and he cannot be with the other two otters as they fight. Cikananga did seem to make an impression on the pet owners as clearly they are not providing their otters with anything like the facilities there. Cikananga needs to develop more otter facilities as in recent months four Hairy-nosed otter cubs have been found being kept as pets. This species appears to be very vulnerable and

because of the poor initial care all four cubs died. We therefore need to have specialist facilities available so that any cubs can be moved to Cikananga immediately.

Prof Hussain (2nd left) explains about habitat assessment to students

Surveying for Asian small-clawed otters in small streams near the rice fields

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We spent some time in the field looking for signs of Asian small-clawed otters around Cikananga, where they hunt for crabs and small fish in the tiny streams around the rice fields. We managed to find spraint and a holt but sadly didn’t see any otters.

On the last night at Cikananga we were treated to some traditional music and dancing by a group in a nearby village. The girls are so graceful in their dance and it was fascinating to see the different musical instruments. We were even asked to dance ourselves, but have to confess that we did not live up to their example in terms of elegance,

although there was plenty of enthusiasm!! We took a few days to explore a bit more of Java but on the day before we flew home we met up with Reza again. He had arranged a meeting with Bupak Agus Sutito, from the Ministry of Forestry, so that we could discuss the workshop and how things should progress. The Ministry is very supportive and keen to help with otter conservation and Reza presented the recommendations which had been drawn up. And Reza had more exciting news. At the end of the workshop it had been agreed that there should be an Indonesian Otter Network who will co-ordinate and work on otter research and conservation together. This has now been set up with members on Sumatra, Java and Kalimantan, which are the only three Indonesian islands where otters can be found. Reza has set up a forum where information can be

shared and he has already received valuable information and feedback: one of the workshop participants has given a report of a Hairy-nosed otter in Kalimantan and a lecturer is keen for his students to do more otter work. All

this within a week – just think how much they can achieve given more time! We are delighted with how positive this workshop has been and look forward to seeing the work grow. It is vital that it is the local people of Indonesia who lead this work and IOSF will support them where necessary.

Participants at the end of the workshop

Nessie at Cikananga

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We are very grateful to Columbus Zoo, the Prince Bernhard Nature Foundation and Stacie Bockheim for helping to fund this workshop. We are also grateful to Prof Padma de Silva (IOSF’s Asian co-ordinator), Prof Syed Hussain (India), Farid Jaafar (Malaysia), Ruth Davidson (now Sri Lanka) and Aad Aadrean (Sumatra) for all their time and effort in providing the training. And of course we would like to thank Reza Lubis (Wetlands International Indonesia) for all his work in organising the whole event. Paul and Grace If you would like to donate towards the new pen for Cikananga please send a cheque marked “Cikananga” on the back or you can do nate online at www.ottershop.co.uk Product of the Month at the Otter Shop www.ottershop.co.uk Sunday 31 March is Easter Day. We have great gift ideas with prices to suit all pockets, including:

Chocolate, aromatic candles, gift baskets, books, mugs, Otter Adoption, artwork etc, and from our new Tom Frost design selection... iPad cover (£25.00) – made from hard polycarbonate this cover case is non scratch and designed for iPad 2/3/4

www.everyclick.com www.spendandraise.com/iosf/ www.charitycards.otter.org

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