Guwahati, Feb. 19 -- byBikash Kumar Bhattacharya,Jyotirmoy Sahariaon 19 February 2024

"It's a holt," said Jehua Natung, excited, pointing to a few rock crevices surrounded by thick roots that extended from a huge tree on the bank of the Kameng River. "You should find otters here during their mating season."

A local Nyishi tribesman, Natung is currently working as an animal keeper at Pakke Tiger Reserve in the East Kameng district of Arunachal Pradesh. The short, slenderly-built man was showing us potential holts - otter dens - in the sanctuary. A field-basedstudypublished in theIUCN/SCC Otter Specialist Group Bulletinin 2022 reported 43 otter signs here. The authors surveyed a total length of 6,430 metres of Kameng riverbank of which 2,...