Film by US Rebecca Rodriguez – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4xLG8m7too

There are many people in the world who would do anything to save an animal.  In most cases it is very normal for an animal lover to want to ease the suffering of an injured or abused animal that they may come across.  But there are some rules in regard to this. 1) Dont buy animals from known illegal black markets in foreign countries, and 2) Dont walk into foreign countries looking for an animal to save in a seedy venue.  The otter pictured above was in a hellish situation. Probably captured from the wild, kept in filthy conditions and fed incorrectly.  A desperate sight in deed.

In situations like this, our human hearts react long before any intelligent thought kicks in.  We are filled with sorrow that this poor animal is in such a dreadful condition.  But what fails many people is that they have no idea of what the serious repercussions can be from acquiring these animals in these markets.  In 2017, a unknown US woman by the name of Rebecca Rodriguez, who claimed to be in Indonesia to help so called “starving sunbears” in Bandung Zoo (who were not starving) is led by a local to an illegal animal market.  Rebecca herself highlights in her video clearly that these animals are in an illegal animal market. Note: Illegal.

What unfolded next was Rebecca Rodriguez and her “team” of “experts” proceed to document the procurement of two otters, from what she herself has labelled an illegal animal market.  The sweet music and touching video documents the so called rescue of the protected and endangered Asian small clawed otter.  What followed was a crafted heart wrenching video and a story that was swung to coerce the public into believing what a wonderful human being this person was for procuring this endangered protected species from an illegal market. Low and behold, Rodriguez forgets to mention the punishment that goes with procuring illegal animals from markets in a foreign country.

What happened to the intelligent thoughts that said “call the police” or “call the zoos and aquariums”?  That is only a question that the film maker can answer. So not one, but two otters were procured.

What happened next was beyond comprehension.  The otters are taken to a hotel, where they are then seen inside a shower with a human being.

Otters like this, especially in the illegal animal trade, carry some of the most deadly diseases that can be passed onto humans and to other animals.  So after this showering episode, the otters were taken to a wildlife sanctuary in Indonesia where thankfully they were immediately put into quarantine.  This was very fortunate because the otters were diseased and could have wiped out the entire sanctuaries population.

Sadly, this type of behavior encourages more people to do the same thing but we hope that this article has educated in what you must not do.

If you go to one of these illegal animal markets and you see a protected endangered species, your first point of call should be the police and the zoos and aquariums. Dont do what these people did in this video.

No matter how much it pulls at your heart strings, procuring animals from illegal markets doesnt help the animals, and in fact it feeds the demand for more animals to be stolen from the wild and sold in the very same illegal animal market.

We hope that the people who acquired these diseased otters and showered with them and cuddled up with them were fully inoculated.

The message here is – dont buy animals from illegal markets, dont shower with them, dont cuddle them – report them to the authorities or legitimate wildlife authorites.