Otter populations have recovered significantly in Britain since the 1970s, but face ongoing welfare challenges from pollution, road mortality, and habitat quality.
Otter welfare reflects the complex interaction between individual animal welfare and population-level conservation status. Individual welfare challenges include road mortality - a traumatic death at road crossings - and the chronic physiological effects of water pollution on animals at the apex of freshwater food chains. Bioaccumulation of persistent pollutants including PCBs and heavy metals causes reproductive and immune system effects. The dramatic population recovery from near-extinction demonstrates what habitat protection and pollution control can achieve for wildlife welfare at landscape scale.