“According to the established facts, the man caught the protected aquatic mammal in the wild last autumn. He then kept the river otter near his holiday cottage in a fenced property. In addition, during a house search, the police found one processed otter skin. The man was charged and is being prosecuted at large,” said Milan Bajcura, spokesman for the South Bohemian Police.
In the Czech Republic, the river otter is particularly protected as a highly endangered species, and its captive breeding and sale are also prohibited. But poachers hunt otters precisely for their skin, which they then sell abroad for a lot of money.
The otter was most likely caught by a man as a cub. “You can’t catch an adult otter because it tempts you. It’s a wild animal,” said Klára Černá from the Vydra ecocenter in Třeboň. An animal kept in captivity will never return to the wild.
“If an otter is used to human contact, it has lost its shyness and will no longer look into the wild. Hunting otters and all wild animals is absolutely undesirable, these animals do not belong in the hands of people,” emphasized Černá.
The confiscated otter thus ends up either in a zoo or a rescue station.
Rare giant otters have raised their young, and they are doing extremely well in Zlín
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