{"id":12886,"date":"2025-07-22T08:02:06","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T08:02:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/12886\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T08:02:06","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T08:02:06","slug":"otters-spotted-in-kashmir-waters-and-residents-are-both-thrilled-and-wary-wildlife-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/12886\/","title":{"rendered":"Otters spotted in Kashmir waters, and residents are both thrilled and wary | Wildlife News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hugam, Indian-administered Kashmir \u2013 Nasir Amin Bhat, 17, was barely ankle-deep in the water when his school friend and neighbour Adil Ahmad shouted from the riverbank on a breezy summer evening in May.<\/p>\n

\u201cTurn back! There\u2019s something in the water.\u201d<\/p>\n

Across the Lidder, a tributary of the Jhelum River, in Hugam village of Indian-administered Kashmir\u2019s Anantnag district, a Eurasian otter (Lutra lutra) plunged into the glacial waters and started paddling furiously against the current with all four limbs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had no idea what it was,\u201d Bhat, a high school student, told Al Jazeera, \u201cbut I grabbed my smartphone and turned on the camera.\u201d<\/p>\n

The grainy, nine-second video shows the creature with a fur coat \u2013 classified as \u201cnear threatened\u201d on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List \u2013 gliding out of the water and jumping onto the riverbank.<\/p>\n

After a few clumsy steps, the semiaquatic animal, which can reach elevations of 3,660 metres (12,000 feet) in the Himalayas during the summer, disappears behind a thick grove of bushes, bringing the video to an uneventful end.<\/p>\n

\"otterEurasian otters used to thrive along the banks of the Lidder River, but rampant construction forced the semiaquatic animal to retreat [Jehangir Ali\/Al Jazeera]<\/p>\n

Long believed to have gone extinct, Eurasian otters seem to be showing signs of resurgence in Kashmir, with three individuals spotted by Indian wildlife officers in two places since 2023.<\/p>\n

The chance sightings have excited environmentalists and wildlife conservationists while raising hopes of a better future for the Himalayan region\u2019s fragile freshwater ecosystems, which have been battered by climate change in recent years.<\/p>\n

\u2018Habitat has improved\u2019<\/p>\n

Indian wildlife biologist Nisarg Prakash believes the sighting of otters in Kashmir was an indicator of high-quality aquatic habitats.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reappearance of otters might mean that poaching has come down or the habitat has improved, and maybe both in some cases,\u201d Prakash, whose work focuses on otters in southern parts of India, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

Protected under India\u2019s Wildlife Protection Act, otters were once widely distributed across north India, including the Himalayan foothills, the Gangetic plains and parts of the northeast.<\/p>\n

A peer-reviewed study by IUCN in November last year noted that the Eurasian otter, known among Kashmiri locals as \u201cvoddur\u201d, was found in water bodies of Lidder and Jehlum valleys, including Wular Lake, one of Asia\u2019s largest freshwater lakes.<\/p>\n

\"otterHugam village in Anantnag district, Indian-administered Kashmir [Jehangir Ali\/Al Jazeera]<\/p>\n

However, over the years, their population became \u201cpatchy and fragmented due to habitat loss, pollution and human disturbances\u201d, says Khursheed Ahmad, a senior wildlife scientist at the Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology (SKUAST-K).<\/p>\n

Ahmad said that, due to habitat alterations from human activities and the encroachment of their ideal habitats along riverbanks and other water bodies, Eurasian otters retreated and became confined to areas that were least accessible to humans.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough they were not extinct, sightings and occurrences had become extremely rare and they were never documented,\u201d said Ahmad, who heads the Division of Wildlife Sciences at SKUAST-K.<\/p>\n

Less than two years ago, a research team led by Ahmad accidentally stumbled on otters during a study on musk deer in Gurez, a valley of lush meadows and towering peaks split into two by the Kishanganga River along the Line of Control, the de facto border between India and Pakistan in the Himalayas.<\/p>\n

Past midnight on August 6, 2023, two individual otters were captured in a riverine habitat at an altitude of 2,600 metres (8,530 feet) in the valley near the 330MW Kishanganga Hydro Electric Project built by India following a prolonged legal battle with Pakistan at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague.<\/p>\n

After that sighting, the research team focused on documenting the presence of otters on the Indian side of Kashmir.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, due to heavy disturbance from fishing and other local and paramilitary activities, no further presence was documented,\u201d the IUCN study notes.<\/p>\n

Ahmed said Bhat\u2019s video is only the second photographic evidence of otters in Kashmir.<\/p>\n

\u2018Too terrified to go there\u2019<\/p>\n

But in the large farming village of Hugam, comprising some 300 families, residents are both excited and worried.<\/p>\n

At the crack of dawn, Muneera Bano, a homemaker, wakes to the flutter of crows cawing furiously on the willow trees lining the tributary\u2019s banks outside her home in Hugam, located some 58km (36 miles) south of the main city of Srinagar.<\/p>\n

Bano has stopped washing clothes and utensils on the riverbank after the otter was discovered, something she had done for years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are underwater caves [in the tributary], and it is hiding in one of them. When it comes out in the morning, crows see it and they start screaming. I am too terrified to go there,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Bhat, the teenager who filmed the video, said he often used to bathe in the tributary\u2019s glacial waters and sometimes also caught fish. \u201cNow I can\u2019t even think about going there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"otterNasir Amin Bhat captured the Eurasian otter on his mobile phone on May 28, 2025, when he was about to take a bath in the Lidder [Jehangir Ali\/Al Jazeera]<\/p>\n

The grainy video led to rumours about the presence of crocodiles in the tributary, prompting Indian wildlife officials to set up a camera trap, which confirmed that it was a Eurasian otter \u2013 also seen in Bhat\u2019s video \u2013 and not a crocodile.<\/p>\n

Some wildlife officials even bathed in the river in the presence of village elders to demonstrate that the water was completely safe.<\/p>\n

Although otters do not pose any threat to humans, they can turn unpredictable, especially when close to humans. But scientists say these animals can grow accustomed to the presence of humans.<\/p>\n

Wildlife biologist Prakash said rather than being scared or fearful, curiosity about otters can make them a sight to be enjoyed while watching them fish or swim.<\/p>\n

\u201cOtters are largely active around dawn, dusk and after dark, though they can sometimes be seen during daytime as well. Eurasian otters largely prey on fish, eels, and sometimes, waterfowl,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Kashmiri farmer Wasim Ahmad remembers a summer day in the early 1990s when he was on the way back from school situated along the banks of Doodhganga, a major tributary of the Jhelum River.<\/p>\n

As Ahmad, now in his 40s, turned the corner, he saw a large procession of people walking jubilantly. One man was holding a dead otter while another was walking a dog on a leash.<\/p>\n

Bagh-e-Mehtab in Srinagar is home to a community of poachers who, in the past, made a living by selling skins of animals such as cats, otters, and other animals. With stricter animal welfare laws in force in India now, the community has given up the old profession.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur elders warned us that otters skinned the children and ate them raw,\u201d said Ahmad, who was in ninth grade then. \u201cBut as I grew up, I didn\u2019t come across even one person who was harmed by otters. It was basically a tactic to keep the children away from the river.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ahmad, the wildlife scientist, said the reappearance of otters in Kashmir was a positive sign.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we should see to it that the new habitat is protected from uncontrolled pollution, garbage accumulation, increased carbon emissions and habitat degradation. Addressing these challenges is crucial for their conservation and wellbeing,\u201d he told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hugam, Indian-administered Kashmir \u2013 Nasir Amin Bhat, 17, was barely ankle-deep in the water when his school friend…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12887,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[1724,64,63,7961,1209,14630,44,128,338],"class_list":{"0":"post-12886","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-asia","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-climate-crisis","12":"tag-india","13":"tag-kashmir","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-science","16":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}