Starting Sept. 21, the California Legislature and dozens of zoos, aquariums, and other organizations from Monterey to Melbourne, honored one of the Golden State’s biggest celebrities: the southern sea otter.
Last month, the state Legislature, led by Sen. Abel Maldonado (R-Santa Maria), approved an initiative officially declaring the last week in September to be Sea Otter Awareness Week, in order to educate the public about the animal and its environmental importance.
Central Coast residents will get their chance to learn about all things otter at a series of free public talks and other events to be held in several local cities, including Santa Barbara, Morro Bay, and Monterey.
Weighing in at 45 to 65 pounds and measuring about 4 feet long, the southern sea otter is often seen as the precociously cute mascot of the California coastline.
According to many experts in the marine biology field, however, life for the otter isn’t exactly smooth sailing.
According to data from Defenders of Wildlife, a national nonprofit devoted to the protection of endangered species, before hunting sea otters for their valuable fur became widespread, approximately 16,000 to 20,000 sea otters called the Golden State’s waters home.
By the early 1900s, sea otters were considered virtually extinct in California, until a small population of 20 to 50 of the animals was found off the coast of Big Sur in 1918.
Decades later, California sea otters were listed as “depleted” under the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972. A year after that, the Endangered Species Act of 1973 listed the species as “endangered,” thus giving the otter full jurisdictional protection until its removal from the list.
The otter has yet to be removed from the list, but population counts collected over the last three years are showing some promise.
According to census data collected by state and federal conservationists, there’s been a three-year running average of 2,826 sea otters in California waters.
“Our counting capability is pretty crude,” said Michael Harris, an environmental scientist with the California Department of Fish and Game.
And the otter’s habitat can make the process especially difficult, he said, since finding an otter in a giant bed of kelp can be likened to the proverbial needle in a haystack.
“The three-year running average smoothes out any variations and gives us a more realistic growth trend,” Harris said.
He explained that the otter needs a consecutive three-year population count of approximately 3,090 to be considered for removal from the endangered species list. The raw population count of sea otters for 2007 was about 3,000.
“So we’re getting close,” he said.
Still, when it comes to survival rates, California’s sea otters fall short of their cousins, the northern sea otters, found thriving beyond Oregon.
For example, state census data estimates that California sea otters have a growth rate of about five percent, compared to an annual growth rate of 17 to 20 percent in “the more pristine areas of Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska.”
Harris was hesitant to go into specifics about the reasons behind the high mortality rate for the more southern otters, but he did list infectious diseases and shark bites as major culprits.
The majority of diseases come in the form of intestinal and protozoan parasites, which are commonly known to kill the more vulnerable members of the species, such as pups and aged otters.
But in California, Harris said, “most of the animals we’re finding are prime aged,” meaning that they’re young adults ready to breed.
In the past, many pathologists and ecologists in the field—including Harris—have theorized that California’s sea otters are especially susceptible to disease because of environmental contaminants and genetic factors.
In the 1980s, a handful of California fisheries were under intense scrutiny for placing their nets in shallow waters inhabited by sea otter populations. But restrictive legislation now prohibits the placement of fishing nets in water shallower than 180 feet.
Today, pollution remains the biggest concern for scientists and conservationists.
Sea otters’ diets consist of sea urchins, mussels, clams, crabs, and other bottom feeders. As a result, the otters ingest higher levels of whatever toxins are present in their food sources.
Sea otters are like the “canary in the mine shaft,” Harris said. In other words, they’re usually indicators of the way humans are impacting marine ecosystems.
INFO BOX: Be aware
For more information about Sea Otter Awareness Week events on the Central Coast, visit www.defenders.org/seaotter/awareness.
Another way people can help is by being aware of what they pour down their drains, said Michael Harris, an environmental scientist with the California Department of Fish and Game.
“Everything runs downhill,” he said. “If you don’t want to sit in a bathtub with it, don’t wash it into the ocean.”
Contact Staff Writer Amy Asman at aasman@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Sep 25 – Oct 2, 2008.
