Surviving on the Island: Chapter 23

Brown sea otter floating on its back. — Sea otter along California coast. “Mike” Michael L. Baird [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Karana sees that the hunters have left wounded otters behind. She takes Rontu in the canoe and finds, wrapped in kelp, a young injured otter. Karana picks up the otter and takes it to a tidepool on the shore.

The otter stays in the pool and slowly heals. Karana feeds it fresh fish daily, and the otter begins to take food from her hand. She names the otter, Mon-a-nee, which means “Little Boy with Large Eyes” in her language.

When the weather makes it difficult for her to catch fish, Karana is unable to bring food to the otter. When she returns to the tidepool, Karana finds that Mon-a-nee has gone.

Fact Check: Sea Otter Population

Were large numbers of sea otters killed in the 1800s (nineteenth century)? What effect did hunting have on the sea otter population? How are sea otters doing today?

What do we know?
Southern sea otters (Enhydra lutris nereis) almost went extinct due to hunting. There are no records of every otter killed, but educated guesses can be make by studying primary sources such as ships’ logbooks and shipping company’s trade records and by working backward from what we know about the sea otter population recovery today. Researchers have determined that at least 500,000 sea otters were killed between 1740 and the early 1900s along the west coast of North America. They first received protection with the North Pacific Fur Seal Treaty of 1911 and later under the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972. Today, the hunting of southern sea otter is illegal, and the sea otter population shows steady recovery in California and Alaska waters.

What is the evidence?
Secondary source: Karl Kenyon, a wildlife biologist, gathered and analyzed extensive information about sea otter populations along the west coast of North American in a report prepared for the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Secondary source: Find out more! Look at tables from an article by Dr. Glenn Farris on sea otter hunting along the California coast in the early 1800s (nineteenth century). The entries listed do not record all sea otters killed, but they provide an indication of the numbers of otters taken, and they also show that ships came from many places—the United States, Spain, Russia, England, Mexico, and Hawaii—to hunt sea otters in California.

Secondary source: The number of sea otters in Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary has increased steadily since 1900. The marine sanctuary numbers are a good approximation of larger population recovery because sea otters have been protected both in and outside marine sanctuaries since passage of the International Fur Seal Treaty of 1911 and Marine Mammal Protect Act of 1972.

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