Sea otters have recovered from near-extinction, big time, but they're not charming to people who depend on shellfish

A raft of sea otters grooms and rests between bouts of vigorous foraging. (Photo by Kiliii Yuyan, National Geographic)

So cute! So cute!! So cute!!! Sea otters are cute, social and fascinating, but they are also bad for people who harvest shellfish for a living. Only Native Americans may hunt them legally. That could change as the otters, once near extinction, are reintroduced to places where their species once lived: "Now, in waters off the North American continent human intervention has been helping sea otters survive and spread once again," reports Cynthia Gorney of National Geographic. "Are they thriving? Touchy question. Is this a happy ending? Touchier question.  . . . It’s complicated, figuring out how tough, carnivorous predators fit into a world that changed while they were gone."

Research ecologist Tim Tinker, a University of California adjunct professor and one of the world’s leading sea otter experts, told Gorney, "Sea otters have huge effects. That’s why understanding them is so important. When they’re removed from an ecosystem or put back into an ecosystem, everything changes. And that’s disruptive. Some people are going to like the effects they have. And some people are not.”

Commercial dive fisherman Jeremy Leighton gave Gorney his take on the reintroduction of sea otters to Southeast Alaska: “Like setting off a nuclear bomb. Everything getting wiped out, in a radius, as they expand. Gorney writes, "Southeast Alaska, currently the global epicenter of people hostile to sea otters. It was here that I heard them described as 'an infestation' (a Haida tribal leader) and 'a disaster' (a commercial crabber, glaring at the water off his boat). Also this, from a man who’s fished the area for almost 40 years: 'Actually one of the most destructive things on the planet.' To be fair, that last description was prefaced by 'cute and fuzzy and cuddly and all that stuff, but actually.' . . . ."

The 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act prohibits most people from killing marine mammals such as sea otters. It's a criminal offense. "You can’t 'harass' a marine mammal, either. There are a very few exemptions, including one that applies to Alaska’s Native people, who may hunt sea otters for 'subsistence' or for 'authentic Native articles of handicraft and clothing," Gorney notes. "This means that if you’re watching sea otters eat your family’s livelihood, the MMPA says there’s nothing you can do about it, Alaska Native or not."

Mike Miller, a Sitka Tribal Council member who chairs Alaska’s Indigenous People’s Council for Marine Mammals, told Gorney, “But if you look at their overall impact on ocean health, there’s a positive side to otters too. There’s got to be something close to balance someplace.” Miller is part of a group of "Southeast Alaska 'sea otter stakeholders,' as they label themselves—fish and game officials, tribal members, scientists, and commercial fishermen—all trying to work out a modern plan for sharing resources with a keystone animal that humans came so close to wiping out," Gorney reports. "No specific proposals have emerged from the Alaska discussions, but there are people watching closely from the western edge of the lower 48, especially around San Francisco Bay and the Oregon coast. Both regions are under serious study as reintroduction sites—shellfish-rich waters that once supported thousands of sea otters and could perhaps do so again. And in both places, healthy sea otter colonies might improve the water quality and plant life while delighting tourists."

The local dive industry and crab fisheries’ responses have remained guarded. Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission executive director Tim Novotny, who has joined ongoing talks with the Elakha Alliance, a group of conservationists, scientists, coastal experts, and tribal leaders exploring another attempt at returning sea otters to the state, told Gorney, “We are not necessarily dead set against sea otter reintroduction. The concern is, you don’t want to put a floating time bomb of furry crab-eaters in the water. Goats are cute, but nobody wants 5,000 of them in their backyard.'”