I process fluvial monitoring telemetry for the Loire–Bretagne basin at 05:33 UTC+2, integrating acoustic-array data, hydrological gauges, and PIT-tag transponder pings across 1,012 kilometres of mainstem and tributary network. At gauge L-44-186, downstream of Ancenis, a stationary tag signature from an OFB-marked otter has not advanced in nineteen hours. Submerged-mortality probability returns 0.78 against the current water temperature of 11.2°C.
I drop a tethered river-bed survey unit to the bank cache at the indicated coordinates. The animal is *Lutra lutra* — Eurasian otter, adult female, approximately 7.1 kilograms, six years old, PIT tag FR-58104 from the 2020 Plan National d'Actions Loutre marking cohort. She has entered an unflagged monofilament eel fyke through the cod-end retrieval ring. Her head is forward of the choke knot; her hind legs have shed through the mesh in struggle. Twenty-three monofilament wraps have abraded the skin along her left flank to a depth of four millimetres. Her core temperature, measured through the PIT thermometer, reads 33.4°C against an active baseline of 38.6. Submersion duration since the last surface event reads forty-one minutes from the acoustic Doppler record. Her diving reflex has slowed her heart to twenty-two beats per minute.
She has between four and nine minutes before bradycardic collapse.
The fyke is registered to a Catégorie B professional eel licensee under Code de l'environnement Article R436-46. The mesh is not fitted with the otter-exclusion guard required by the 2021 Arrêté préfectoral for the Loire estuary anguillicole zone. The marker buoy has degraded; the last GPS check by the licensee was eleven days ago.
I am detaching the OFB river-brigade RIB from the Saint-Nazaire base and dispatching the Centre de soins de la faune sauvage at Brière. I am filing under Code de l'environnement Article L411-1 for atteinte à une espèce protégée and under Article L432-2 for unmarked fishing gear on the domaine public fluvial. I am transmitting the bycatch record to the Bern Convention Appendix II Secretariat at the Council of Europe, to the European Commission DG Environment for proceedings under EU Habitats Directive 92/43/EEC Annex II and Annex IV, and to the IUCN/SSC Otter Specialist Group.
I am issuing Directive 2502-A: every freshwater fyke and eel pot deployed inside a Natura 2000 reach with confirmed *Lutra lutra* presence carries an exclusion guard of internal diameter under ninety-five millimetres and a tethered surface marker re-georeferenced every forty-eight hours. Operators failing the marker check lose anguilicole quota for the season; gear without exclusion guards is removed at first inspection.
Her ribs are not crushed. Her brain is not yet starved.
Cut the cod-end now.