Hugam, Indian-administered Kashmir – Nasir Amin Bhat, 17, was barely ankle-deep within the water when his college buddy and neighbour Adil Ahmad shouted from the riverbank on a breezy summer season 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 in opposition to the present with all 4 limbs.
“I had no thought what it was,” Bhat, a highschool pupil, informed Al Jazeera, “however I grabbed my smartphone and turned on the digicam.”
The grainy, nine-second video reveals the creature with a fur coat – categorized as “close to threatened” on the Worldwide Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Purple Record – gliding out of the water and leaping onto the riverbank.
After a number of clumsy steps, the semiaquatic animal, which might attain elevations of three,660 metres (12,000 ft) within the Himalayas in the course of the summer season, 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 prospect 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 may imply that poaching has come down or the habitat has improved, and perhaps each in some instances,” Prakash, whose work focuses on otters in southern elements of India, informed Al Jazeera.
Protected below India’s Wildlife Safety Act, otters have been as soon as broadly distributed throughout north India, together with the Himalayan foothills, the Gangetic plains and elements of the northeast.
A peer-reviewed examine by IUCN in November final yr 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, through the years, their inhabitants grew to become “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 Expertise (SKUAST-Ok).
Ahmad stated that, as a consequence of habitat alterations from human actions and the encroachment of their ideally suited habitats alongside riverbanks and different water our bodies, Eurasian otters retreated and have become confined to areas that have been least accessible to people.
“Though they weren’t extinct, sightings and occurrences had turn into extraordinarily uncommon they usually have been by no means documented,” stated Ahmad, who heads the Division of Wildlife Sciences at SKUAST-Ok.
Lower than two years in the past, a analysis crew led by Ahmad by chance discovered otters throughout a examine on musk deer in Gurez, a valley of lush meadows and towering peaks cut 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 have 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 Venture constructed by India following a protracted authorized battle with Pakistan on the Everlasting Courtroom of Arbitration in The Hague.
After that sighting, the analysis crew targeted on documenting the presence of otters on the Indian aspect 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 just the second photographic proof of otters in Kashmir.
‘Too terrified to go there’
However within the massive farming village of Hugam, comprising some 300 households, residents are each excited and nervous.
On the daybreak, Muneera Bano, a homemaker, wakes to the flutter of crows cawing furiously on the willow timber lining the tributary’s banks outdoors her dwelling in Hugam, positioned 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 finished 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 they usually begin screaming. I’m too terrified to go there,” she stated.
Bhat, {the teenager} who filmed the video, stated he typically used to wash within the tributary’s glacial waters and typically additionally caught fish. “Now I can’t even take into consideration going there,” he stated.
The grainy video led to rumours concerning 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 fully secure.
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 relatively 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 lively round daybreak, nightfall and after darkish, although they’ll typically be seen throughout daytime as nicely. Eurasian otters largely prey on fish, eels, and typically, waterfowl,” he stated.
Kashmiri farmer Wasim Ahmad remembers a summer season day within the early Nineteen Nineties when he was on the way in which again from college located alongside the banks of Doodhganga, a serious 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 dwelling by promoting skins of animals akin to cats, otters, and different animals. With stricter animal welfare legal guidelines in power in India now, the group has given up the outdated career.
“Our elders warned us that otters skinned the kids 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 mainly a tactic to maintain the kids away from the river.”
Ahmad, the wildlife scientist, stated the reappearance of otters in Kashmir was a optimistic signal.
“Now we must 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 informed Al Jazeera.
