River Otter, Devon predominantly rural area, with small cattle, sheep and dairy farms. The largest town in the Otter Valley is Honiton. Tourism and leisure play important roles in the economy. For much of its length, the river flows through two Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs) – The Blackdown Hills AONB (to the north of Honiton) and East Devon AONB (to the south of Ottery St Mary). The river passes through or by Upottery, Rawridge, Monkton, Honiton, Alfington, Ottery St Mary, Tipton St John, Newton Poppleford and Otterton before reaching the Otter Estuary to the east of Budleigh Salterton. The Otter Estuary
Japanese river otter Ehime Prefecture in 2014, noting several recent sightings. In February 2017, a wild otter was filmed alive on Tsushima Island in Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan. However, it is not known whether the observed otter was a Japanese river otter. Research done in the early 1990s by the Department of Biology of Kochi University in Japan revealed some interesting facts about the genes of the Japanese River Otter. For many years, it was thought that the Japanese river otter was a subspecies of the Eurasian otter "Lutra lutra". However, the studies done in Kochi University revealed something different. By comparing the Mitochondrial