Giant river otters Coco and Nima have returned to Argentina’s Iberá wetlands after otters were wiped out there 40 years ago. “Rewilding Argentina has released the pair and their two pups” into the 3100 square-mile Iberá Park, “restoring a keystone predator once hunted to national extinction.”
The Miami Herald reports:
In a wetland of northeastern Argentina, a family of the country’s “top aquatic predator” ventured outside their enclosure for the first time. They didn’t run or even wander very far, but that wasn’t the point. The family’s release into the wild marked a conservation milestone for a species considered locally extinct for about 40 years.
Conservationists began this ambitious project eight years ago with one goal: bring giant river otters back to Argentina..Giant river otters are the world’s largest otters, reaching almost 6 feet long and weighing up to 72 pounds, Rewilding Argentina said in a news release. The species is considered endangered globally and went locally extinct in Argentina in the late 1980s due to hunting and habitat loss.
Conservationists prepared a spot for the otters in the Iberá Wetlands, a vast protected area, by building semi-aquatic enclosures to keep the animals contained while allowing them to adjust to the natural environment. Next, the team found zoos in the United States and Europe willing to donate otters to the project and transferred the animals to the new enclosures. “Since giant river otters live and hunt in large family groups, their release into the protected Iberá wetlands has been contingent on their forming a family”…Conservationists oversaw the giant river otters as they learned to fish, formed mating pairs and had pups.
A wasp is saving one of the world’s rarest birds from extinction.
Meanwhile, wolverines are making a comeback in southern Finland, where they were wiped out in the 19th century.
Dramatic seabird recoveries are occurring in Mexico.
An endangered rare duck has made a comeback in China.
