Videos | rare! Footage of small-clawed otters eating in Seda territory

Nigong Sichuan online reporter Lan Zhen

On the afternoon of January 16, Wang Jianhai, a netizen from Seda County, Ganzi Prefecture, was on his way back to the county seat, and accidentally found an animal that was foraging near xuergou village in Onda Town (Sequ River Basin), which was identified as a small claw otter, a national second-level protected animal. This is a newly discovered national protected animal in Seda after the discovery of snow leopards, black-necked cranes, lynx, red hemp ducks, white-rumped deer, Tibetan hartebeests and blue horse chickens.

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"It's lying on a piece of ice, foraging for a fish, sometimes nibbling hard, sometimes playing by the river." Wang Jianhai said the small clawed otter lay on the ice and ate the fish for a few minutes, after which it jumped into the river.

The small-clawed otter is at the top of the freshwater food chain, and its survival requires not only a large number of fish, but also a deep water area in the river channel, and enough hidden shelter on the river bank to require high water quality and riverbank environment. Shuai Jun, director of the Ecological and Environmental Bureau of Seda County, said that the image of the small-clawed otter fishing and eating near the xuergou village in Onda Town, at an altitude of more than 3800 meters, fully shows that the small-clawed otter, as the flagship species of the river ecosystem and a top carnivore, has adapted to survive in the Sequ River Basin, and also shows that the Sequ River ecosystem in the hinterland of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau at an altitude of more than 3800 meters is in a healthy and intact state.

In recent years, Seda County has continuously increased its ecological protection efforts, continuously improved the habitat environment of wild animals, and the number of species and populations of various wild animals in the region has shown a restorative growth trend. Rare wild animals have been found many times in Seda County, indicating that the protection of the ecology has achieved good results, and the awareness of wildlife protection among the masses has also been significantly improved.