N O T E F R O M T H E E D I T O R - Otter Specialist Group

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IUCN Otter Spec. Group Bull. 24(1) 2007BECOMING A MEMBER OF THE OSGMany people have been wondering how membership of the OSG is decided, so theMembership Team have produced this short note.As with all Specialist Groups of the World Conservation Union (IUCN), group members areappointed by, and at the discretion of, the Chairman of the OSG.The Chairman has set up a small Membership Team to handle applications and proposals formembership and to conduct the initial assessment. This team consists of Lesley Wright,Arno Gutleb, Grace Yoxon and Nicole Duplaix. We then recommend new appointees to theChairman. If he approves them, Lesley Wright, the Membership Secretary, issues the formalinvitation to join the group, acting on the Chairman’s behalf.There are three levels of membership: full members, affiliate members and student members.Affiliate membership is an intermediate category, usually reserved for new applicants whomay eventually become full members, depending on their level of experience with otters.Any member of the OSG can propose others for membership. What we are looking for ispeople who demonstrate a long-term commitment to otter conservation, in the broadest sense– this means that we have a very wide range of members: researchers, environmentalists,ecologists, toxicologists, zoo staff, rehabilitators, vets, educators and many others. Thisproduces an active forum with a wide range of views, but everyone should have as theirprimary focus the continued survival of otters.When someone is proposed as a new member, or applies for membership, we need a resumeof their otter-related work and interests, and of course a working email address. Please emailthis to Lesley (L.C.Wright@rl.ac.uk). If and when they are accepted as members, we willalso need a short description of their interests to add to the Members-Only area of thewebsite, so other members can find out what they do.This is a good time to remind all current members that we would also like a short resume(about 100 words) summarising experience and interests from everyone, as this helps newmembers get oriented, and should be of interest to everyone.The OSG Membership Team- 5 -
IUCN Otter Spec. Group Bull. 25(1) 2008A R T I C L EA COMPARISON OF TWO DIFFERENT METHODS FOR ESTIMATING THEDIET OF THE NEOTROPICAL OTTER, Lontra longicaudis, WITH THEPROPOSAL OF A NEW INDEX FOR DIETARY STUDIESVania Carolina FONSECA da Silva,Marcelo Lopes RHEINGANTZ,Fernando Antonio dos Santos FERNANDEZDepartamento de Ecologia, CCS, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, CxP 68020 - Av. BrigadeiroTrompowski - Cidade Universitária - Rio de Janeiro, RJ - 21941-590 – Brazil.e-mail: vania@biologia.ufrj.brReceived 10 th December 2007, accepted 26 th January 2008Citation: Fonseca, V.C., Rheingantz, M.L. and Fernandez, F.A. dos Santos (2008). A Comparison ofTwo Different Methods for Estimating the Diet of the Neotropical Otter, Lontra Longicaudis, with the Proposal of aNew Index for Dietary Studies. IUCN Otter Spec. Grou[ Bull. 25 (1): 6 – 12Abstract - We analyzed scats of the Neotropical otter (Lontralongicaudis) with two methods in order to compare any difference inresults. The method “frequency of occurrence” is the mostcommonly used in dietary studies of the Neotropical otter andcarnivores in general. The other method was “score-bulk estimate”.The results showed that the rank order of prey categories in the dietof the otter was similar for both methods, even though proportionsof different prey in the diet varied considerably. We advocate thatfuture otter diet studies should use an index that combinescomplementary methods like the ones used in this study, andpropose such an index, the Rescaled Importance Index (RII). Thisindex was intended to provide a single value expressing theimportance of each dietary category, in order to allow easiercomparisons between different studies.- 6 -
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