There’re still a few shops in Japan where you can touch otters. Bishan otters appear on Japanese TV show The Bishan otters made their on-screen appearance on a Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) variety show called "Quiz! | COURTESY OF YOSHIHIRO KATAOKA / VIA KYODO. Small clawed river otter Aoi, left, and Takechiyo eat their special cat food while owner Ayako Higuchi and her daughter Reina watch, in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward, on May 18, 2018. Some people keep otters as pets, so they are easy to get used to. The otter trade has spread from Thailand, most notably to Japan. Tokyo, Japan, 19th October 2018—a boom in demand for otters as pets in Japan, particularly the Small-clawed Otter, has been linked to rising numbers of “otter cafés”, high-profile television programmes featuring otters and celebrities, and the popularity of otter pet “superstars” on social media platforms. The sea otters inhabit the North Pacific from northern Japan to Baja California in Mexico. In Japanese folklore Otters were considered very dangerous as they would shapeshift into beautiful women or little children and kill men. ANSWER: And while smuggling otters into Japan is illegal, the Japan Times reports that once the otters are in the country, people can buy and sell them freely. In Japan, where more than a dozen animal cafes have otters, investigators found otters whimpering, shrieking and making distress calls while customers played with them. Asian otters at risk from illegal trade to meet booming demand in Japan. The hourly system is 1,500 yen for 1 hour on weekdays and 2,000 yen on weekends. Japan hosts at least one free-roaming river otter, but it’s not likely the country’s endemic variety, which was last documented decades ago and has been “officially” extinct since 2012. Japanese fan finds otters in the rain. Otters In Japanese folklore. A wild otter was caught on film on Nagasaki Prefecture’s Tsushima Island in February, marking the first sighting of the mammal in Japan in 38 years, a University of … They live mainly in coastal waters that have a depth of fifteen to twenty meters. In Japanese folklore, they fool humans like the fox (kitsune) and tanuki. LOUTRE means otter in French. This is not a cafe, but a shop where you can touch otters. One of them is LOUTRE in Kawaramachi, Kyoto. In addition to the ecological cost of capturing wild otters as pets, people who own pet otters may face unexpected hardships. the Iwakan" on Oct. 12 evening. In Japanese, they are called “kawauso” . Sea otters can be seen year-round at Cape Kiritappu. July 30, 2014 araho. An avid otter fan from Japan also came to try his luck with otter sighting recently. 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