Otter populations have recovered strongly in the UK following water quality improvements and legal protection. Supporting otter welfare requires maintaining and expanding this recovery.
Otter recovery is one of the UK's great wildlife success stories, demonstrating that when pollution pressures are removed and legal protection is maintained, species can recover. Individual otter welfare concerns include road mortality (otters travel between water bodies and cross roads), fishing gear entanglement, and inadequate prey availability from over-fished or degraded rivers. The welfare-positive approach to otter conservation involves maintaining and restoring riverine habitat, ensuring fish populations that support otter prey needs, installing otter-friendly road culverts under busy roads, and ensuring livestock mesh fencing has appropriate gaps to allow otter passage.