Rewilding the World

With news that a small island in the Bay of Bengal has sunk under the rising waves of global warming, iWild highlights one of Bangladesh’s Endangered All-Stars, the Asian Short-Clawed Otter. Listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN’s Red List, this small otter makes a living off of crabs, molluscs, and crustraceans—which it leaves lying in the sun to make shell-opening easier—in both freshwater and estuarine ecosystems. Fishermen in Asia have trained these intelligent animals to drive fish into their nets. As with most species, habitat loss is of critical concern, but the IUCN Otter Specialist Group works on its conservation along with the Houston Zoo, which spearheads captive-breeding and other projects for the species.