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August 15th, 1998 Plight Of The Southern Sea Otter - Will We Be Next? If we pretend Examining the plight of our animal neighbors can tell us much about the effects of our disconnection and isolation from the natural world. Every species is intricately woven into the web of life and although an animal's non-economic value is not always apparent to our untrained eyes, they all contribute in some way toward the survival of us all.
Southern Sea Otter (all otter pictures from Jimmy's Sea Otter Page at http://www.silcom.com/~njhua/otter/otter1.html)Today, the small remnant colony of once plentiful Southern Sea Otters in California is declining. We should all be alarmed, frightened, and angry that this animal, known as a keystone species because of its vitally important role in the ecosystem, may be hastened to extinction because of competition with reckless industries, toxic pollution of our precious ocean resources, and even by the efforts of humans to save it. The Southern Sea Otter, a marine mammal that is in the same family as river otters, minks, weasels, and skunks, was doomed from the moment it was "discovered" by humans in the mid-1700s. Because the otter lives in very cold water and has no protective blubber, it has incredibly dense fur - over 650,000 hairs per square inch - twice as dense as the fur seal. The fur traps air bubbles and provides insulation against heat loss. Furbearing animals never had much luck around humans. Hundreds of thousands of these animals once inhabited a great arc of the sea, extending from Northern Japan through the Aleutian Island chain, and along the North American mainland from Alaska to Baja California. The demand for the otter's pelt, which stretches over 12 feet long when removed from the animal, was virtually insatiable. By 1900, the species was virtually extinguished - nearly one million otter pelts are believed to have been taken.
Carnage continues today along with many other species. (Photo from the Otter Creek trappers website at http://www.northcoast.com/ottercrk/photost.html. Inset from Cronks Custom Calls website http://members.aol.com/cronkcalls/calls.htmlIn 1911, with the declaration that the Southern Sea Otter was commercially extinct with biological extinction soon to follow, the International Fur Seal Treaty was signed, forbidding the killing of otters on the high seas. It was not certain, though, that there were any otters left to protect. Some believe that one of the major reasons that Russia was so willing to sell Alaska so cheaply was that with the otter gone the land appeared worthless! Only 50 otters were believed to remain in California. Miraculously, in 1937, during construction of Highway 1 along the California coastline at Big Sur, road workers reported seeing a band of otters playing in the surf at the mouth of Bixby Creek. It seems that local residents had known of this group of 150 (some say as many as 300) otters since at least 1916, but they hid the information for fear the otters would be in jeopardy. This small remnant soon became the center of nationwide preservation efforts. This population had grown to 2,239 by 1993, but today, the population is down by 5.2 percent. The animal is once again in serious jeopardy from human greed and even from efforts to save them. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), declared the species "threatened" in 1977. The agency moved 139 otters between 1987 and 1990 to San Nicolas Island off the coast of Ventura in Southern California. It seemed like a good idea at the time since the entire population was in danger of being wiped out if an oil spill happened in the heavily traveled shipping lanes where they all lived. Today, some conservation groups view the project as a dismal failure. Today, only 17 otters remain at San Nicolas Island. Many otters died after their stressful capture. Some swam back home, some disappeared, but many others died, some from being shot and beaten. Yes, you read that right. Some think that angry fisherman killed some of them.
But the industry voices were loud enough to convince the USFWS to declare "otter free zones." Otters that strayed into those zones were captured and removed. Some of them died as a result of the trauma. Today, there is evidence that as otters migrate south they may be dying from infectious diseases and contaminants in the ocean. The specifics of these diseases will be examined in this column next week, but this should give us grave cause for concern. I think it is no coincidence that 38 percent of the dead otters examined by the National Wildlife Health Center died from infections caused by parasites found in human and animal feces. In Southern California, we dump billions of gallons of partially treated sewage a week into the ocean. Fifty percent of that is currently untreated. The sea otter decline could mean the beginning of the end of us all if it is indicative of a cascading decline in the health of the oceans, the lifeblood of our world. If otters are dying, we should all be looking over our shoulders. RESOURCES 1. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is holding public hearings about the current Southern Sea Otter crisis. Many fishing industry representatives will be there to comment, to be sure. Those of us concerned with the health of our world must comment as well. Tell the USFWS to end the translocation project and leave all otters where they are. They must continue their research into the causes of the otter deaths from disease and illness. Email Jamie Clark, the Director of the USFWS at Jamie_Clark@mail.fws.gov and Anne Badgley, the Regional Director of the Pacific Region of the FWS at Anne_Badgley@mail.fws.gov 2. Send a copy of your letter to Jim Curland, Science Director for the Friends of the Sea otter at jim@seaotters.org 3. Find your Congressional representatives are and e-mail them. Tell them to get involved in this issue. If you know your Zip code, you can find them at http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ziptoit.html or you can search by state at http://www.webslingerz.com/jhoffman/congress-email.html 4. Read a letter from the Friends of the Sea Otter to the USFWS about this issue at http://www.seaotters.org/pdf/letter8498.pdf (you will need Adobe Acrobat to read this file). 5. Read about the reasons why the sea otter should not be blamed for the decline of the shellfisheries at the Friends of the Sea Otter web site at http://www.seaotters.org/release6-23-98.html and specifics about the abalone fishery can be read at http://www.seaotters.org/abalone.html 6. Read a detailed accounting of the issue at the USFWS web site at http://164.159.11.73/news/6-26_ott.htm 7. See the data about the decline of the sea otter population at http://164.159.11.73/news/sea_otte.htm 8. See a video of sea otters at work and play at http://www.seaotters.org/store/products/ra/world28.ram 9. You can read the details of the investigations into Southern Sea Otter deaths at http://www.emtc.nbs.gov/http_data/nwhc/factshts/otter1.html 10. See some wonderful otter photos at http://www.silcom.com/~njhua/otter/otter1.html 11. Learn about the issues. Seek out books on the subject. A good source for used (and new) books is Powell’s Bookstore in Portland, Oregon at http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/associate?assoc_id=212 where you will find a wonderful alternative to the massive chain bookstores taking over the market. 12. Bookmark this website. Visit it often for ways we can all Heal Our World. |
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Copyright (c) 1998, Jackie A. Giuliano Ph.D.
jackie@deepteaching.com
The fishing industry fears that the otters' voracious appetite for abalone and
sea urchin would compete for the dwindling shellfish resources. This, of course, is
ludicrous. There is no way that the eating habits of 17 or even 100 otters is going to
compete with the factory ships that take hundreds of thousands of pounds of shellfish from
the sea each year. Even the sport fishing industry removes enough abalone each year to
equal the entire commercial fishery.