Eurasian otters have recovered significantly in many European countries but face ongoing threats from pollution, traffic, and habitat degradation affecting individual welfare.
Road traffic mortalities cause traumatic deaths for individual otters. Pollution exposure, particularly from rodenticides and agricultural chemicals, causes sublethal health effects including reproductive failure and liver damage. Otters caught in eel or crayfish traps experience drowning distress. Improving road infrastructure with otter underpasses, banning harmful pesticides, and ensuring fish passage in rivers all have direct welfare benefits for individual otters.