Otter News Archive

Sea otters' West Coast comeback

Pleasure for some, worry for others

Read original. . .
Previous | Archive Index | Next

11th March 2010

Stefania Seccia

The Westerly News, Ucluelet, British Columbia, Canada

The sea otter population has gone up about 87.5 per cent since they were extirpated from the region in 1929 and reintroduced from 1968 to 1971.

Josie Osborne, marine biologist and Raincoast Education Society (RES) executive director, made a presentation entitled Otters: From 0 to 3,000 in 35 years as part of the Pacific Rim Whale Festival March 9.

Sea otters were hunted for their coats when Captain Cook came to the West Coast in 1778. The last sea otter in Canada was killed in 1929.

Between 1968 and 1971 a group of scientists successfully transplanted 40 (out of 89) sea otters from Amchitka, Alaska, which was about to become a nuclear testing site, to Checleset Bay (between Kuyquot and the Brooks Peninsula on the West Coast of Vancouver Island).

"So some fisheries biologists from Canada had this brilliant idea, 'Well hey, if they're going to die anyway because they'll be doing nuclear testing, why don't we take those sea otters and we'll move them and relocate them to some of the places where they used to be'," Osborne told a crowd of about 40 people at the Green Point Campground Theatre.

Before the 1700s, scientists estimate that about a total of 150,000 to 300,000 sear otters resided in Baha, the Pacific Rim, Russia and Japan.

But, scientists do not know how many sea otters Clayoquot Sound can support, according to Osborne.

"When I first moved here in 1998 there were very few [sea otters]," Osborne said. "Now I see them pretty much every time I go out on the boat."

A sea otter comes from the weasel family and is the only one in that family to live its life predominantly in water.

They're carnivorous animals and feast mostly on shellfish such as Dungeness crab, sea urchins, top snails and abalone.

Male sea otters can weigh up to 45.5 kg (100 lbs.) and females can weigh up to 27.3 kg (60 lbs.) to 36.4 kg (80 lbs.) Both genders can eat up to one quarter of their body mass.

This feisty appetite is crucial for survival, but also depletes the once-abundant urchin population (in the absence of otters) that Nuu-chah-nulth communities rely on.

In her whale festival presentation Uu-a-thluk: Taking care of species at risk in the Nuu-chah-nulth territories, Central Region biologist Katie Beach posed the question: "Who have precedence rights for food: sea otters or Nuu-chah-nulth?"

Although there is no clear answer, the environment the sea otters once called home has significantly changed, Beach said.

"When [sea otters] were wiped out they were no longer eating their food sources," Beach said. "All of a sudden the urchins population blew up... the good thing about that was there were easily accessible shellfish for the remote communities.

"So when sea otters went around eating everything in their path for remote communities on the island they are faced with having a loss of one of their main food sources and one important source of economic return."

When remote community shellfish harvesters go to catch shellfish they may only make $5,000 a year but it's a lot of money for low-income families to lose, she said.

"So there has been controversy," she said.

Uu-a-thluk helps with the sea otter counts to collect data about their slow move south from Checleset Bay to Clayoquot Sound.

Some research in the past 20 to 30 years suggests finfish such as herring, salmon and rockfish come to the area in the absence of otters and therefore kelp.

"So there are tradeoffs," Beach said.

Under Canada's Species at Risk Act (SARA), sea otters are at the Species of concern level. The following are the SARA levels:

- Species of concern

- Threatened

- Endangered

- Extirpated (extinct from a region but still exist somewhere in the world)

- Extinct

There is an assessment every five years to determine the accurate level for an animal. There are 93 aquatic species protected under SARA.

A species of concern can have a limited harvest under a management plan with the Department of Fisheries (DFO) but only for ceremonial purposes, according to Beach.

Nuu-chah-nulth chiefs and DFO are working out a sea otter management plan, which is still in the approval stages, according to Beach

"[The management plan] is biologically sound, says how many, what weapons used [in ceremonial harvesting]," Beach told the Westerly.

Any type of harvesting of sea otters is illegal at the moment, pending the plan's completion.

Beach said some First Nations people have been exploring harvesting shellfish, but haven't had much luck because of the presence of sea otters.

"But there is the possibility to do it in other areas where sea otters aren't present," Beach added.

Sea otters are a "keystone species," Osborne said, which means it only takes a few to make a tremendous difference.

Osborne said there are several things threatening the livelihood of sea otters and those are oil spills, toxoplasmosis (an infectious disease caused by a one-celled organism) and human beings.

Oil spills can kill sea otters quickly unless they can be caught and rehabilitated, according to Osborne. It costs about $80,000 to rehabilitate one sea otter.

In California, sea otters were dying from cat litter being flushed down toilets, which carries toxoplasmosis.

"Occasionally otters die of natural causes," Osborne said.

Orcas and eagles hunt otters as well.

Sea otter coats were traditionally hunted for chiefs and their wives as it was a sign of social status. They were caught with bows and arrows, Osborne said.

Osborne first came to Tofino in 1998 as a Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council fisheries biologist. She was also a technician and researcher for the DFO and the BC Ministry of Forests.

Beach joined the Uu-a-thluk in 2006 and has a Masters in Resource and Environmental Management.

Uu-a-thluk, meaning to "take care of," is a Nuu-chah-nulth resource management organization that focuses on maintaining and managing local sea resources