- A recent documentary ‘My Otter Diary’ follows the lives and challenges of the vulnerable smooth-coated otters in the river Kaveri, while also spotlighting human-otter conflict.
- The root of the conflict in the area is the decline in the fish population, which has become a fight for survival for both the fishers and the otters.
- Untreated sewage water, heavy metal contamination, industrial effluents, and fertilisers and pesticides discharged into the Kaveri river have significantly affected its health and marine life.
Sugandhi Gadadhar remembers the joy of spotting smooth-coated otters for the first time as a child while visiting the banks of the Kaveri river in Karnataka. In recent years, she is back again at the riverbank, but this time she is camouflaged in the wilderness with a camera, patiently waiting for the otters, and one in particular — Maya.
Two species of otters have been documented in the Kaveri river, in a survey by the Wildlife Trust of India: the small-clawed otter and the smooth-coated otter. Maya and her family are smooth-coated otters, who have become the muse of a new documentary, My Otter Diary, by filmmakers Sugandhi and Raghunath “Rana” Belur.
“Since 2018, we had been following three to four otter families along the Kaveri. We saw Maya and her family more regularly, and their behaviours and movement patterns were fascinating,” says Sugandhi. “We named her Maya because she kept magically disappearing and reappearing, so it felt apt,” Sugandhi said during the panel discussion after a screening in Bengaluru.
My Otter Diary focuses on the resilience of the elusive smooth-coated otters in the face of constant threats, their family dynamics, and a human-animal conflict brewing along the banks of the Kaveri river. The film is currently being screened in different cities and the filmmakers aim to release it on an online platform.
Finding otters and filming them
For Sugandhi and Rana, founders of a production company, Aranya Parva Creations, this journey started off with the idea for a short film as an introduction to otters. But the more they observed, the more they learnt about the stressed environment these otters were living in and the conflict between them and fisherfolk, which often resulted in dire consequences such as otters losing a limb or even death.
“I had seen the smooth-coated otters long ago, and they remained an enigma that I wanted to find out more about. When Rana and I started discussing otters, not many people knew about them. Some didn’t even know what an otter was. We wanted to share a story about Indian otters to build an understanding of their lives,” Sugandhi explains.
Initially, they started looking for otters in the Tungabhadra river, even before it was notified as an otter reserve in 2016. In the same year, their friend Nisarg Prakash, an independent otter biologist, suggested looking at the Kaveri river and introduced them to a local fisherman, Shivanna or Shivu, who went on to become an integral part of the documentary. Apart from taking them along the river in his boat to find the otters, he also shared his expertise about the river and everyone associated with it.
Two years later, the filmmakers decided to stay in a village for a while along the Kaveri riverbank to start experiencing the waterline. “This really helped us in understanding the river, the problems that came with it, the otters and their social lives, as well as the threats they face,” Rana says.
The filming took place over three years, with the duo identifying different otter dens, setting up hidden cameras near Maya’s home, and observing the otter family’s daily life. “One of the challenges of filming otters is that often when they show up and then go back into the water, you don’t know which direction they are going. They may show up 100 yards away from you or pop up right next to your coracle,” says Sugandhi.
Filming on the boat was challenging, so they had to sit on the opposite banks, and sometimes the distance between them would be too wide.
“Otters are extremely smart. They look around, and if they hear voices, they sometimes don’t even come out of the den. They always come out when they know that it’s relatively safe for them. They know who the locals are and the people they can trust, so they tune themselves accordingly,” Sugandhi says.
“Otters are very wary of humans. So, spotting them can be difficult. They can move in the daytime or night. We had to plan accordingly to film them. Also, since they are very smart, if we camouflaged ourselves or discreetly hid a camera, they would figure out that something new had popped up in their environment,” Rana continues.
Otter challenges
The 52-minute documentary shows the daily life of Maya and her family, who survive on the declining fish in the river. From safeguarding their hiding spots to finding enough to feed the family, their daily silent struggle has been overlooked.
Smooth-coated otters like Maya are characterised by their smooth and sleek coats. They have short limbs, webbed paws, small ears and eyes, and long whiskers. Although they can be found all over India — in wetlands, rivers, and paddy fields — their presence is especially felt in regions abundant with freshwater. In recent times, the otter population has been dwindling, causing imbalances in the ecosystem.
Among the 13 otter species that have been documented across the world, three are found in India: the Eurasian otter, the smooth-coated otter, and the small-clawed otter. Currently, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists the smooth-coated and small-clawed otters found in the Kaveri river as vulnerable.
In her 2005 survey to determine the distribution of the otter population in the Kaveri river, researcher Kausalya Shenoy studied 50 sites around the area but found evidence of otter presence in only 12 sites. However, local people have seen otters in almost 40 sites.
Over the years, the water quality of Kaveri has been deteriorating. A 2016 study around the Krishna Raja Sagar (KRS) dam area found that turbidity was exceeding permissible limits in all samples. The authors noted that the water quality was moderately damaged due to human activities such as agriculture and urbanisation.
In the film, Sugandhi points out that for Maya and other otters, “safe habitats are rare since humans have moved into otter habitats.”
“In the past, we have heard stories and seen photos of huge fish, weighing around 15 kg, being caught in the river. But now, the fish catch has become smaller, and the number of fishermen has increased. And the conflict is beginning to escalate,” explains Rana. “The declining fish number in the river has made the otters steal fish from the fisherfolk, which then leads to the latter retaliating,” he adds.
Fish are crucial for a healthy freshwater ecosystem, but in the Kaveri river, untreated sewage water, heavy metal contamination, industrial effluents, and fertilisers and pesticides discharged into the river have significantly affected fish and other marine life. More than 60 industries in Karnataka and almost 1,140 in Tamil Nadu contribute to the heavy pollution impacting the river. The quantity of wastewater released directly into the river is approximately 87,600 cum/day, a 2020 study revealed.
“People don’t drink water from our own river (Kaveri),” says Shivu in the documentary.
The pollution, along with unregulated fishing, has not only led to a noticeable reduction in fish but also put species at risk, including various mahseer species such as the giant hump-backed mahseer, red-tipped halfbeak, and the slender stone loach. “There are also a lot of invasive fish, such as African catfish, now being seen inside the river, which are not native to India. This is causing problems for the endemic fish which is now becoming the livelihood for the fisherfolk,” Rana explains.
Human-otter conflict
In a fascinating shot in the documentary, we see Maya protrude just her head out of the water, scan the surroundings, and then go back in. Sugandhi calls this periscoping. “They just want to get to a higher point to see if they can see what’s happening around them. Every single one in the family does that,” she says.
It’s interesting because in the habitat where Maya and her family live, they face daily threats from snares, dynamite fishing, and other environmental factors. So, their way of keeping a check on the environment shows their innate smartness.
Dynamite fishing, an illegal way to catch fish in large quantities, is also practiced by some fisherfolk along the river. Research has shown that one stick of dynamite can kill any living being within a 10-15 feet radius of the explosion, which includes fish, otters, and even crocodiles. “We don’t have any direct evidence of dynamite fishing affecting otters. But we have seen dead turtles, as well as dead snakes and fish,” says Rana.
For the fisherfolk whose livelihood depends on fish, there seems to be a sense of helplessness with their dwindling numbers in the Kaveri river. So, when otters steal the little they find, it becomes a battle for survival. However, even within the fisherfolk community, there is conflict about how to handle the situation, with some opposing the use of snares and other harmful tactics to keep the otters away.
“Not every fisherman or fisherwoman puts up a snare or other things that hurt the otters, but they don’t really like them either,” Rana says.
The root of the conflict is the significant decline in the number of fish in the river. “Fisherfolk are catching a lot of catfish, which nobody prefers to eat. The local, native fish that used to be found in the Kaveri, are reducing. So, there is a need to figure out how these native fish numbers can be increased. If fish increase, would that reduce the conflict? That’s a question we need to explore,” Rana explains.
He also adds that stealing fish from the fisherfolk is ingrained in the system within several otter families now. “There is a need for brainstorming with experts to find out how otters can be diverted. This requires a lot more study to understand how to strike the balance between the socioeconomic issues and wildlife conservation to find a solution that can be a win-win for both,” he says.
My Otter Diary offers an important glimpse into the challenges that otters like Maya are facing today, as well as the human and environmental linkages.
“Often when people think of human-animal conflict, they think of forests. But we wanted to show that it can also happen along a river. We also want to put the spotlight on the Kaveri river, as seen from the point of view of otters and fisherfolk. The conflict is because of what we are doing to the river, which needs urgent attention. If we don’t take care of our rivers, such conflict will only increase,” Rana says.
Read more: Otters faced heat from smugglers in northeast India
Banner image: My Otter Diary shows the daily life of Maya and her family, who survive on the declining fish in the river. Image by Sugandhi Gadadhar and Raghunath Belur.
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