Europe - Conservationists are worried that high levels of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals - EDCs - in European waters are shrinking the native beasts' fabled genitals a wildlife symposium heard today.
The problem's got so bad that the females of the species are seeking better endowed mates from across the zoological spectrum, producing freakish hybrids and other fauna undesirables.
"We're talking undescended testes," symposium chair Professor Einstein Flintstone commented, "reduced sperm count and malformed penises.
"Persistent organic pollutants are robbing these critters of up to half a gram's weight of their baculum [penis bone], leading to disaster in reproductive capacity."
The shrinkage means females no longer want to mate with their traditional counterparts, "probably because they just can't see what's on offer in the murky mating wetlands they inhabit," according to the Prof.
Drastic measures will be needed if the European otter, Lutra lutra, is to survive without morphing into its virtually genital-free Spotted-dick (Hydrictis maculicollis) otter first cousin, a native of Australasia.
The African toothless, clawless, dickless otter (Aonyx capensis) is virtually extinct.
