Return of the Sea Otter Read online

  Copyright © 2018 by Todd McLeish

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form, or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Sasquatch Books

  Editor: Gary Luke

  Production editor: Bridget Sweet

  Design: Bryce de Flamand

  Copyeditor: Kirsten Colton

  Front cover illustration: Donna McKenzie

  Interior photographs: Michael Yang, Michael L. Baird, Sean Crane, Kim Steinhardt, Ken Conger, Renay McLeish, and Patrick J. Endres/​AlaskaPhotoGraphics.com

  Interior and back cover illustrations: © iStock.com | nicoolay – Seafood Illustrations,

  © iStock.com | bauhaus1000 – Seashell and Sea Life Engraving

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: McLeish, Todd, author.

  Title: Return of the sea otter : the story of the animal that evaded extinction on the Pacific Coast / Todd McLeish.

  Description: Seattle, WA : Sasquatch Books, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017041436 | ISBN 9781632171375 (paperback : alk. paper)

  Subjects: LCSH: Sea otter–Conservation–Pacific Coast (North America)

  Classification: LCC QL737.C25 M36 2018 | DDC 333.95/976950979–dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2017041436

  ISBN 9781632171375

  Ebook ISBN 9781632171382

  Sasquatch Books

  1904 Third Avenue, Suite 710

  Seattle, WA 98101 | (206) 467-4300

  www.sasquatchbooks.com

  v5.2

  a

  For Renay, yet again

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Introduction

  CHAPTER 1:

  Keystone Species

  Canton, China

  CHAPTER 2:

  Opposition

  Big Sur, California

  CHAPTER 3:

  Catch and Release

  Monterey, California

  CHAPTER 4:

  Shifting Paradigm

  Santa Cruz, California

  CHAPTER 5:

  Surrogate Mothers

  Cannery Row, Monterey, California

  CHAPTER 6:

  Stranded

  Homer, Alaska

  CHAPTER 7:

  Necropsy

  Anchorage, Alaska

  CHAPTER 8:

  Cucumbers and Geoducks

  Prince of Wales Island, Alaska

  CHAPTER 9:

  Significantly Altered

  Sitka, Alaska

  CHAPTER 10:

  Crash

  Aleutian Islands, Alaska

  CHAPTER 11:

  Translocation

  Olympic Peninsula, Washington

  CHAPTER 12:

  Walter

  Vancouver Island, British Columbia

  CHAPTER 13:

  Gaining Ground

  Moss Landing, California

  Acknowledgments

  Selected Bibliography

  About the Author

  Introduction

  KARL MAYER is adamant that sea otters are not cute—not the tiny fluff balls in their first days and weeks of life, not the chocolate-covered juveniles, not the grizzled adults. We should take his opinion seriously, as he has been rescuing and rehabilitating sea otter pups and adults for more than twenty years at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, including spending many years as a wet suit–attired surrogate mother teaching them to find food in the wild. So he should know what he’s talking about. As a result of his work, Mayer has been bitten and scarred numerous times by the sometimes vicious sea otters, which is probably the main factor in his unpopular opinion.

  But he is wrong. Judging by the oohs and aahs and coos and sighs I hear at the very mention of the words “sea otter,” the animals are the definition of cute. In fact, cute may be an understatement. Even the fishermen whose livelihoods are jeopardized by the recolonization of sea otters admit that their nemesis rates at the top of the cuteness scale, and probably always will. Dozens of online videos of sea otters holding hands, pups resting on their floating mothers, otters wrapped in kelp, and otters pounding open shellfish with rocks on their bellies—viewed by tens of millions of adoring fans—will ensure their reputation for cuteness in perpetuity.

  In my three years of studying sea otters, interviewing scientists, and observing otters in the wild in preparation for writing this book, I made a conscious effort to avoid the C word so as to maintain my credibility with the experts and remain as unbiased as possible about the conflicts otters cause and the wrath they sometimes incur. But I failed miserably. I accidentally let slip the words “cute” and “adorable” too many times to count in aquarium settings, at research facilities, and while tracking the animals in the wild. I couldn’t help myself. Despite Mayer’s assertion, otters are cuter than the proverbial button. And I’m happy to admit it. I don’t know whether it’s their furry bodies and whiskered faces, their humanlike grooming skills, their use of their belly as a picnic table, or their delightful childcare strategies that have earned them the moniker “the champions of cute”—it’s more likely a combination of all of those traits, but I’m not about to disagree with the sentiment of the majority.

  The cuteness of sea otters and the ease with which they can be viewed in central California, southern Alaska, and dozens of aquariums worldwide make them immensely popular among a broad audience. The market for sea otter T-shirts, mugs, charms, and trinkets, not to mention sea otter–based ecotourism, is huge, and they are one of the primary drivers of the economy in and around Monterey, California. It doesn’t hurt that more than two dozen children’s books have been published about sea otters in the last twenty years, creating multiple generations of sea otter fans far beyond their limited range along the North Pacific coastline.

  Their cuteness aside, however, sea otters are remarkable creatures who exert a dramatic positive influence on the health of at least two very different marine ecosystems, and their unique physiology and tool use make them stand out among the world’s marine mammals. Yet the otter has also faced centuries of murderous persecution for its lustrous fur coat, which became the foundation of an immensely profitable trade with China that quickly led to the animal’s extirpation throughout most of its range and to its near extinction at the beginning of the twentieth century. Otters remain controversial in many places, especially in Southeast Alaska, as they recolonize more and more of their former range and deplete a variety of marine invertebrates that had built to unnaturally high populations in their absence. Commercial fisheries had become established for some of those abundant invertebrates, like sea urchins, sea cucumbers, and several species of crabs, but the sea otters’ return often reduces the commercial harvest of these invertebrates to unviable levels. The otters are also unfairly blamed for invertebrate declines more appropriately attributed to overfishing and other causes. The increasing numbers of sea otters in some regions have fueled calls for lethal control—and even a bounty by one legislator in Alaska—to restore invertebrate populations to their prior unnatural levels. But over time the animals tend to win over most people, and in most places the establishment of a growing wildlife-watching industry soon far surpasses the economic value of the fisheries. Yet the animals remain disliked by a small but vocal segment of the human population that refuses to
acknowledge the value in their appeal. For those individuals, the cuteness of sea otters will never trump their perceived deficiencies.

  I was drawn to sea otters during numerous wildlife-watching vacations to California and Alaska in my thirties and forties. I distinctly remember my conversion from birder to sea otter aficionado during a trip in the late 1990s to Morro Bay, California, a three-hour drive north of Los Angeles. The bay’s epicenter is Morro Rock, a massive geologic pinnacle my bird guides indicated was an ideal site for observing canyon wrens, white-throated swifts, and nesting peregrine falcons. While we found our target species and got especially good looks at the falcons, it was a group of about fifteen sea otters in a cove leading to the rock that was most memorable. The animals appeared unafraid of people as they lounged on their backs close to the roadway, within easy viewing and photography range. The photos my wife, Renay, and I shot that day remain among the best wildlife photos we have ever taken. And there was no doubt in either of our minds that those animals were adorable. Whenever we recall that trip, it’s the otters that remain most distinct in our memories.

  Since then we have sought out sea otters several more times in Monterey Bay and Seward, Alaska, experiences that convinced me to write this book. My research took me back to Seward, as well as to the Aleutian Islands, Homer, Juneau, and Prince of Wales Island in Alaska; to Vancouver and Vancouver Island in British Columbia; to the Olympic Peninsula of Washington; and up and down the central coast of California. During those travels, I helped numerous scientists with their research; observed sea otter autopsies and surgeries; met with fishermen and Native Alaskans unhappy about the growing population of sea otters; watched sea otters from a kayak, sailboat, motel room, cliff, restaurant, and research vessel; visited several aquariums where otters were being rehabilitated and exhibited; and interviewed dozens of sea otter biologists and enthusiasts. Those experiences gave me an even greater appreciation for the natural history—and the associated controversies—of the cutest animal on earth.

  Chapter 1: Keystone Species

  CANTON, CHINA

  ALMOST IMMEDIATELY upon submerging, we came upon a forest unlike any I had ever seen, a forest of complex textures and stunning colors that quickly enveloped us and pulled us deeper into its multilayered environment. The trees were small and scattered at first, just several pencil-thick stalks of golden kelp woven into thin trunks that soared skyward. Fronds of feathery leaves reached toward the water’s surface every foot or so along each stalk, sometimes dancing in the surging tides or, at the surface, floating to support the weight of hungry birds. As we entered the forest, it became increasingly dense, with uncountable stalks joining together to form massive trunks, alarmingly entangling our feet and hands and leaving little space to maneuver. The roots of this forest, called holdfasts, appeared as an explosion of sticky, skinny fingers grasping the rocky seafloor but never digging into the sediments. Scattered at the forest’s edge were great meadows of fluffy purple sand dollars standing erect in the sand, like columns of soldiers aligned for battle.

  I was on my first scuba dive in eight years, my first dive ever in the Pacific Ocean, and my guides for the day were introducing me to the underwater world of Monterey Bay, along the central coast of California, where numerous marine reserves help to protect a dynamic ecosystem and a spectacular array of ocean life. We were just two hundred yards from tourist shops and restaurants yet in a world far more impressive and majestic than most in the crowds could even imagine. Just as John Steinbeck described in his novel about the area, Cannery Row, “the sea is very clear, and the bottom becomes fantastic with hurrying, fighting, feeding, breeding animals.”

  Attached to the rocks supporting the kelp were patches of iridescent algae, fist-size maroon blades that flashed pink and purple in the penetrating sunlight. And between the seaweeds were tiny animals almost too breathtaking to be real. Slug-like nudibranchs of several varieties—including an out-of-range southern species decked out in magenta with yellow stripes, a more subdued lemony specimen, and the showy Hopkin’s rose, whose wavy, bright-pink gills made it look like a clown’s wig—were difficult to spot nestled in hiding places in the rocks. The most impressive, though, was the pale-pink-and-orange rainbow nudibranch, three times as large as the others, a showy, writhing creature that feeds on tube anemones.

  Nearby we came across groups of brown sea hares, football-size slugs on steroids that congregate in groups of six or eight, often surrounding giant plates of their yellow, spaghetti-like eggs. Bat stars in autumnal colors were seemingly everywhere, and ghostly decorator crabs covered in living algae and anemones lurked mostly unseen. My guides, Scott Bernasconi and Michelle Stamme, pointed out several tiny red octopuses; camouflaged a mottled sandy color rather than their namesake red, they were barely noticeable until they moved slightly or sought refuge in dime-size clam holes. As we wandered the seafloor, dodging the giant kelp while investigating rocky crevices where fluorescent-purple sea urchins lurked beside the largest starfish I have ever seen, we spied anemones of every imaginable color, scary-looking sheep crabs and cabezon fish, and a massive gumboot chiton resembling a hard loaf of bread with a fleshy yellow underside.

  About twenty-five minutes into our dive, I experienced some difficulties with my scuba gear, so I signaled to Bernasconi and Stamme to return to the surface. As we ascended to the canopy, we passed hovering rockfish and kelpfish, kelp crabs and grazing turban snails. We emerged into the bright sunshine for a brief conversation and minor equipment adjustment. Before submerging again, we took a quick glance around, and not twenty yards from us was a resting sea otter wrapped in kelp, its silky bay-colored fur highlighted by a mocha head and a hint of amber on its snout. Its mittened paws were crossed on its chest as if praying, its rear flippers were raised out of the water to absorb the warmth of the sun, and its pelage still dripped from a recent foraging dive. It was a teddy bear–like animal, cuddly and charismatic, and in defiance of our proximity, it ignored us completely—probably because it was sound asleep.

  The animal didn’t remain sleeping long. It must have sensed our presence, because a few moments later it opened its chocolate eyes, raised its head, and glared at us. Despite our alien-like scuba outfits, the otter seemed only mildly annoyed by our too-close-for-comfort manifestation. It was obviously used to being awoken by divers, kayakers, and other intruders. It glanced quickly around to confirm that we were the only ones encroaching on its territory, then swiveled its head back in my direction as if to reassure itself that we weren’t dangerous. And still in a reclining position, as if nothing was amiss, it proceeded to groom itself.

  The sea otter first tossed aside a blade of kelp, no longer needing it to remain in place, then dipped its nimble paws in the water and began rubbing its cheeks. After rinsing its paws again, it moved on to massaging its scalp, ears, and neck before moistening its digits one more time and rubbing its eyes. It then grabbed a handful of fur from its chest and tugged it toward its mouth, whereupon it spent a few seconds licking the fur into shape before repeating the process with a different patch. It followed the same procedure a few more times, tugging and licking and tugging and licking, until each hair was apparently clean and in the right position. The otter then gave its upper body a quick shake, like a dog exiting the tub, stretched its lanky body, and returned to a reclining position. With one more glance at me and my companions, it flashed a toothy grin and went back to sleep.

  We watched the otter for a minute or two more as we drifted silently toward it, trying to decide whether to continue our dive or abandon it in favor of more otter watching. Although we chose to return to the seafloor, we paused to give homage to the sea otter because we knew it was the otter that was responsible for nearly everything else we were to see that day.

  * * *

  SEA OTTERS (Enhydra lutris) have an unusual influence on the health and maintenance of their kelp-forest ecosystem. In their absence, the kelp forest declines rapidly as a result of what sc
ientists refer to as a trophic cascade—a domino effect in which the demise of one species affects the health or behavior of another species until almost all have been disturbed. We often hear about how species are linked in a food web and how each has an ecological role to play, but in most cases the ecosystem can sustain itself after the loss of a few species. But that’s not true of sea otters and kelp forests. When sea otters are removed from a kelp forest, the population of one of the otters’ favorite foods, sea urchins, expands rapidly, and the urchins, which prefer the taste of kelp, quickly consume the luxuriant seaweed, mowing down everything sprouting from the rocky seafloor. With no kelp, the kelpfish and kelp crabs and just about every other species I saw on my dive—and many more—disappear entirely, leaving a barren landscape like an abandoned nuclear test site. But return sea otters to the ecosystem, and a revolution ensues as the otters keep the urchins in check, allowing the kelp to make a comeback. This is followed by the crabs and snails and nudibranchs and schools of fish that then attract sea lions, rounding out the resurrection of the kelp forest. This cascade of species rises and falls entirely because the sea otter plays such a crucial role in the function of its ecosystem.

  While that makes sea otters ecologically important, they are much more than that. Sea otters are all about superlatives. They are the smallest of the world’s marine mammals, yet considerably larger than one would imagine from their photographs, with males growing to a length of five feet or more. Sometimes topping out at more than one hundred pounds, they are the heaviest members of the Mustelidae family, which includes skunks, weasels, badgers, and wolverines. They have the densest fur of any animal on earth, with as many as one million hairs per square inch of fur, compared to the one hundred thousand hairs that typical humans have on their entire head. The sea otter is the only marine mammal with no blubber, the only Mustelid that does not dig a den or burrow, the only marine mammal that uses its paws rather than its mouth to capture prey, and the only marine mammal capable of lifting and overturning rocks to find food. And it is one of very few mammals known to use tools. It’s no wonder why otters are so adored.