Hugam, Indian-administered Kashmir – Nasir Amin Bhat, 17, was barely ankle-deep within the water when his faculty good friend and neighbour Adil Ahmad shouted from the riverbank on a breezy summer time night in Could.
“Flip again! There’s one thing within the water.”
Throughout the Lidder, a tributary of the Jhelum River, in Hugam village of Indian-administered Kashmir’s Anantnag district, a Eurasian otter (Lutra lutra) plunged into the glacial waters and began paddling furiously towards the present with all 4 limbs.
“I had no concept what it was,” Bhat, a highschool scholar, advised Al Jazeera, “however I grabbed my smartphone and turned on the digicam.”
The grainy, nine-second video reveals the creature with a fur coat – categorised as “close to threatened” on the Worldwide Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Purple Listing – gliding out of the water and leaping onto the riverbank.
After a couple of clumsy steps, the semiaquatic animal, which may attain elevations of three,660 metres (12,000 ft) within the Himalayas through the summer time, disappears behind a thick grove of bushes, bringing the video to an uneventful finish.
Lengthy believed to have gone extinct, Eurasian otters appear to be displaying indicators of resurgence in Kashmir, with three people noticed by Indian wildlife officers in two locations since 2023.
The possibility sightings have excited environmentalists and wildlife conservationists whereas elevating hopes of a greater future for the Himalayan area’s fragile freshwater ecosystems, which have been battered by local weather change in recent times.
‘Habitat has improved’
Indian wildlife biologist Nisarg Prakash believes the sighting of otters in Kashmir was an indicator of high-quality aquatic habitats.
“The reappearance of otters would possibly imply that poaching has come down or the habitat has improved, and possibly each in some instances,” Prakash, whose work focuses on otters in southern components of India, advised Al Jazeera.
Protected underneath India’s Wildlife Safety Act, otters had been as soon as broadly distributed throughout north India, together with the Himalayan foothills, the Gangetic plains and components of the northeast.
A peer-reviewed examine by IUCN in November final 12 months famous that the Eurasian otter, identified amongst Kashmiri locals as “voddur”, was present in water our bodies of Lidder and Jehlum valleys, together with Wular Lake, one in all Asia’s largest freshwater lakes.
Nevertheless, over time, their inhabitants turned “patchy and fragmented as a consequence of habitat loss, air pollution and human disturbances”, says Khursheed Ahmad, a senior wildlife scientist on the Sher-e-Kashmir College of Agricultural Sciences and Know-how (SKUAST-Okay).
Ahmad stated that, as a consequence of habitat alterations from human actions and the encroachment of their splendid habitats alongside riverbanks and different water our bodies, Eurasian otters retreated and have become confined to areas that had been least accessible to people.
“Though they weren’t extinct, sightings and occurrences had turn out to be extraordinarily uncommon and so they had been by no means documented,” stated Ahmad, who heads the Division of Wildlife Sciences at SKUAST-Okay.
Lower than two years in the past, a analysis group led by Ahmad by accident came across otters throughout a examine on musk deer in Gurez, a valley of lush meadows and towering peaks break up into two by the Kishanganga River alongside the Line of Management, the de facto border between India and Pakistan within the Himalayas.
Previous midnight on August 6, 2023, two particular person otters had been captured in a riverine habitat at an altitude of two,600 metres (8,530 ft) within the valley close to the 330MW Kishanganga Hydro Electrical Mission constructed by India following a protracted authorized battle with Pakistan on the Everlasting Court docket of Arbitration in The Hague.
After that sighting, the analysis group centered on documenting the presence of otters on the Indian facet of Kashmir.
“Sadly, as a consequence of heavy disturbance from fishing and different native and paramilitary actions, no additional presence was documented,” the IUCN examine notes.
Ahmed stated Bhat’s video is simply the second photographic proof of otters in Kashmir.
‘Too terrified to go there’
However within the giant farming village of Hugam, comprising some 300 households, residents are each excited and apprehensive.
On the morning time, Muneera Bano, a homemaker, wakes to the flutter of crows cawing furiously on the willow bushes lining the tributary’s banks outdoors her dwelling in Hugam, situated some 58km (36 miles) south of the primary metropolis of Srinagar.
Bano has stopped washing garments and utensils on the riverbank after the otter was found, one thing she had performed for years.
“There are underwater caves [in the tributary], and it’s hiding in one in all them. When it comes out within the morning, crows see it and so they begin screaming. I’m too terrified to go there,” she stated.
Bhat, {the teenager} who filmed the video, stated he usually used to wash within the tributary’s glacial waters and generally additionally caught fish. “Now I can’t even take into consideration going there,” he stated.
The grainy video led to rumours in regards to the presence of crocodiles within the tributary, prompting Indian wildlife officers to arrange a digicam entice, which confirmed that it was a Eurasian otter – additionally seen in Bhat’s video – and never a crocodile.
Some wildlife officers even bathed within the river within the presence of village elders to show that the water was utterly protected.
Though otters don’t pose any risk to people, they’ll flip unpredictable, particularly when near people. However scientists say these animals can develop accustomed to the presence of people.
Wildlife biologist Prakash stated somewhat than being scared or fearful, curiosity about otters could make them a sight to be loved whereas watching them fish or swim.
“Otters are largely energetic round daybreak, nightfall and after darkish, although they’ll generally be seen throughout daytime as effectively. Eurasian otters largely prey on fish, eels, and generally, waterfowl,” he stated.
Kashmiri farmer Wasim Ahmad remembers a summer time day within the early Nineteen Nineties when he was on the way in which again from faculty located alongside the banks of Doodhganga, a significant tributary of the Jhelum River.
As Ahmad, now in his 40s, turned the nook, he noticed a big procession of individuals strolling jubilantly. One man was holding a lifeless otter whereas one other was strolling a canine on a leash.
Bagh-e-Mehtab in Srinagar is dwelling to a group of poachers who, up to now, made a residing by promoting skins of animals resembling cats, otters, and different animals. With stricter animal welfare legal guidelines in power in India now, the group has given up the previous career.
“Our elders warned us that otters skinned the youngsters and ate them uncooked,” stated Ahmad, who was in ninth grade then. “However as I grew up, I didn’t come throughout even one one who was harmed by otters. It was principally a tactic to maintain the youngsters away from the river.”
Ahmad, the wildlife scientist, stated the reappearance of otters in Kashmir was a constructive signal.
“Now we should always see to it that the brand new habitat is protected against uncontrolled air pollution, rubbish accumulation, elevated carbon emissions and habitat degradation. Addressing these challenges is essential for his or her conservation and wellbeing,” he advised Al Jazeera.
