River otter populations have recovered significantly following pollution controls but face ongoing threats from habitat degradation, road mortality, and illegal persecution that require active conservation response.
Individual otter welfare during population recovery includes the risks of road mortality at river crossings, persecution by fish farm operators, and the chronic stress of navigating fragmented waterway habitats. Otters are highly mobile animals that cross infrastructure repeatedly in the course of normal territorial behavior, making road casualties essentially inevitable without targeted mitigation. Otter-friendly road culverts with dry ledges have proven highly effective at reducing mortality and deserve wider implementation as a direct welfare and conservation measure.