Situation actuelle de la loutre, Lutra lutra, en Belgique et problématique de sa conservation ; The European otter in Belgium today: conservation problems

Widespread all over the country till the end of the last century, the otter has rapidly declined. In 1973 when hunting was definitely closed, the otter was already threatened and restricted to a few localities. In 1889, the Belgian Ministry of agriculture decided to pay bounties for otters, a system which was cancelled only in 1963. Game statistics of the past century allow the annual otter bag to evaluated as roughly 25 % of the standing population. As it is the case in other European industrialised countries, freshwater habitat loss and water pollution lead to a considerable decrease of the... Mehr ...