sea otter threats

The Sea Otter: Past to Present
The Number One Threat
Laws that Help the Sea Otter
Today's Decline


Before the white explorers discovered the sea otter, they lived all along North America's coast, from California to Alaska, across the Pacific to Japan and Russia. They were everywhere.

Until they were discovered, that is. A new rage boomed - sea otter pelts, warm and luxurious - everyone who was anyone had to have one. So they were hunted. Hunted throughout the 1800's till the early 1900's, when they were finally forbidden to be hunted. But by then, it was believed that the sea otter had gone extinct.

However, a raft of about 300 otters was discovered in 1938 on the Big Sur coast in California. Amazingly enough, the miniscule population grew to 2,200 otters.

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The number one threat to sea otters is oil spills. Oil spills, caused by the carelessness of humans, are lethal to many marine creatures and plants, but especially harm sea otters.

It's because of the way sea otters survive. Sea otters, a long, long, long time ago, used to be foragers. They would gather what food they could find along the shore. However, they began to move out into the sea, where food was more plentiful. As they migrated, they evolved to cope with the ice cold waters. Their fur, which orginally couldn't keep them warm in such cold water, adapted - today, sea otter fur is so thick that it keeps them extremely warm. Their hundreds of thousands of hairs per square inch capture little air bubbles that form a layer of air against the sea otter's skin. This microscopic layer of air is what keeps sea otters afloat - and warm.

This is where oil spills come in. Sea otters are constantly grooming, because when their fur gets dirty, the layer of air cannot form. When oil gets into a sea otter's fur, it is nearly impossible to clean. It becomes tangled and matted and the sea otter cannot float. Most sea otters drown or freeze to death in oil spills. If they do not drown, they die of poisoning from trying to lick the oil out of their fur. Oil spills are devastating to populations of sea otters.

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Laws that Help our Endangered Friend

The safety of the sea otter is covered by the federal government with the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) and the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The sea otter is also fully protected under California law.

Each law classifies the sea otter a little differently. The MMPA designates the otter as depleted or low in numbers; the ESA considers the otter endangered or threatened with extinction. FSO ( Friends of the Sea Otter) has spent the last 25 years working to make sure that the sea otter never gets classified as endangered.

When ESA was passed in 1973, many environmentalists hoped that it would indeed establish a way to guarantee the protection of fragile species. And while it has to some extent, the battle to keep the ESA in place has been unrelenting throughout the past 20 years.

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Marine Mistery: After rebounding in the mid-1990s, sea otters are again disappearing from the kelp forests and fishing grounds of the California coast. Scientists search for the fuding to provide the answers.

For awhile, it looked as though the story of the Southern Sea Otter would be one of success: a species of the vurge of extinction that miraculously bounced back. However, just when we thought we were safe, the sea otter population has been in a decline and no one knows why.

Spring surveys conducted in 1999 show a distinct five-year decrease from a high of 2,377 counted in 1995, including a 5 percent decline since 1998 alone. Now, a one-year dip would be normal, as wildlife populations are always fluctuating. However, it's been over four years of a steady decline for the otters.

But why? Why is this happening? One theory is that the fish industry is to blame, because sea otters can easily become trapped in nets and pots. Or it could be due to overfishing, causing a severe decline in the population of the sea otter's primary food sources: urchins and abalone. It could even be pollution and disease. Also, a decline in the population of certain fish species has caused a decline in harbor seals and Steller sea lions, therefore causing orcas to begin feeding on sea otters.

But whatever the reason, sea otters are declining, and we are left with a choice: "We can either pay now to understand the cause of the declines or we can pay later when the costs of our neglect could be infinitely greater."

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