IUCN/SCC Otter Specialist Group Bulletin
© IUCN/SCC Otter Specialist Group

Volume 20 Issue 1 Pages 1 - 56 (April 2003)

Note from the Editor
Previous | Contents | Next

This is the issue that unfortunately sets a new record as, by the time it arrives, it will have been delayed by 6 months. I am very sorry for this but this time most manuscripts came very late and it took time before they were reviewed. I did not want to produce a thin issue as the costs would be similar to one of the usual size. Following from this, I would encourage everybody who is considering submitting a manuscript to do it now so that we may have the second issue around the usual time at the end of the year.

There were two conferences on otters in Europe over recent months, namely "The Return of the Otter - Where and How" (30th June - 5th My 2003, Isle of Skye) and the Workshop at the 4th European Congress of Mammalogy, held on July 27 - August 1, 2003 in Brno, Czech Republic. The first I attended personally, and we had a lot of good contributions and discussions in Scotland. I have received similar information on the meeting in Brno. Hopefully Proceedings will be available soon.

My sincere thanks go to Amt der Oberösterreichischen Landesregierung in Austria, who contributed to the printing costs of this issue.

How many of the 300 persons that received the last issue responded by sending back the leaflet or contributed? Who wants to guess? This is always a very big question for me when I send out the leaflet every year, but this time it was an absolute negative record. Up to now 39 people have responded, of which 28 were willing to contribute! This inevitably leads to the question - do we need a Bulletin? For whom am I producing the issue twice a year? I think it is absolutely unacceptable for the reviewers, the persons translating the abstracts and all the others helping, that almost 90% of people do not respond at all. Actually this is also a crucial point as regards financing of the Bulletin as if only 100 people would pay the 16 Euro once a year the whole Bulletin would be financed. I have to admit that the question of the Bulletin is something that should have a very high priority at the next Otter Colloquium! After this issue is printed there is hardly any money left for the second issue in 2003.

Finally, once again many thanks go to Leo Backbier, Paul Chanin, Andrew Crawford, Lee Harding, Ján Kadlecík, Chris Mason, Matt Murphy, Claus Reuther, and Jordi Ruiz-Olmo, all of whom provided information on recent publications. Kevin Roche (Czech Republic) again functions as a reader for those contributions that have not been reviewed by at least one native English speaker, whilst Eduardo Carillo-Rubio (USA) and Lional Lafontaine (France) translated the abstracts into Spanish and French. I also have to thank the 'Otter Bulletin Team' for their continuing help, namely Hans van den Berg (Ede), and Els Hoogsteede-Veens and Erwin Hellegering of GRAFISCH SERVICE CENTRUM VAN GILS (Wageningen).

Previous | Contents | Next