STOP THE DEVELOPMENT OF OTTER CAFES ON BALI

STOP THE DEVELOPMENT OF OTTER CAFES ON BALI

Since the first cat cafe opened in Osaka in 2004, animal-themed cafes in Japan have diversified with increasingly unusual species, including exotic birds, reptiles and
mammals.

There are now Japanese otter cafes, which are popular both with locals and international tourists as they can interact with the otters and find the animals “cute”.
They then want one of their own thus driving the pet trade. Some cafes also offer sales of otters and there has clearly been an increase in the sale of live otters.

The number of otter cafes in Japan has risen considerably and there are now plans for one on Bali, and this will undoubtedly be the first of many such facilities. Otters are already very popular pets in Indonesia, where there are over 800 people with pet otters in Jakarta alone, so this will just increase demand.

Many Japanese cafes claim the otters were legally bred and purchased, but there is no proof of this. So they may be wild caught after their mother has been killed or they may be captive-bred. But then we do not know the conditions under which they are kept and whether females are treated like breeding machines as in the notorious “puppy mills”.
Otter populations are declining worldwide due to habitat loss, water pollution, reduction in prey biomass, and poaching and this is just extra pressure on wild populations.

We have to stop the new otter café in Bali as this will start a new trend and the same will happen as in Japan, a chain of suffering otters inside cafes around the country.