Illegal otter trade:: An analysis of seizures in selected Asian countries (1980-2015) (PDF, 3.5MB

The designations of geographical entities in this publication, and the presentation of the material, do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of TRAFFIC or its supporting organizations conc erni ng the legal status of any country, territory, or area, or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. [...] • In Indonesia, steps need to be taken to address the growing pet trade in otters, beginning with the inclusion of the Smooth-coated Otter and Small-clawed Otter as protected species within the legislation that would effectively ban the capture and possession of these wild animals. [...] The data gaps in this study lead to an underrepresentation of illegal trade records and stand in the way of a comprehensive overview of the illegal otter trade, which is likely to be much larger than the data suggest. [...] Casual browsing of trading websites has hinted at the importance of the Internet in the illegal otter trade although a study of this was outside the scope of the current study. [...] This clearly obstructs the ability to estimate the impacts of the otter trade on individual species and complicates the task of prioritizing species of concern.