Over 100 countries voted Sunday to ban the trade in the smooth-coated otter and placing it on the CITES most endangered list. The proposal was adopted by 102 votes in favour, 15 against and 11 abstentions at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) meeting in Geneva. Ecologists say this is vital for the survival of the species which has seen numbers in the wild plummet by at least 30 percent in the past 30 years, a decline which has accelerated with the fad in Japan of keeping otters as pets.

Otter cafes have sprung up in Japan offering baby otters for up to $10,000. Popular Instagrammers posting selfies with their pet otter may simply be seeking to warm the hearts of their sometimes hundreds of thousands of followers, but animal protection groups say the trend is posing an existential threat to the silky mammal.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2019