CITES Votes to Ban Trade in Two Endangered Otter Species
GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — A trade ban is looming for two endangered otter species after some 100 countries voted to increase protections following a social-media-fueled craze for acquiring the silky mammals as pets.
Sea otters are seen together along the Elkhorn Slough in Moss Landing, Calif., on March 26, 2018. Along 300 miles of California coastline, including Elkhorn Slough, a wildlife-friendly pocket of tidal salt marsh and rich seagrass in the curve of Monterey Bay, southern sea otters under state and federal protection as a threatened species have rebounded from as few as 50 survivors in the 1930s to more than 3,000 today. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)
Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) voted overwhelmingly in Geneva Sunday to place the smooth-coated otter on the treaty’s most endangered list. On Monday they voted to do the same for the Asian small-clawed otter.
Conservationists hailed the vote, insisting a trade ban was vital for the survival of the two species, which have seen numbers in the wild plummet by at least 30 percent in the past 30 years.
This decline is believed to have accelerated significantly in recent years with a fad in Asia, and Japan in particular, of keeping otters as pets.
https://www.courthousenews.com/cites-votes-to-ban-trade-in-two-endangered-otter-species/