How To Prevent Sea Otters Essay

Sea otters are a small mammal that lives in the waters along North America's west coast from California to Alaska. A few years ago some of the sea otter populations off of the Alaskan coast started to decline rapidly and raised several concerns because of their important role in the coastal ecosystem. Experts began investigating and came up with two possible explanations. One explanation was environmental pollution and the second was attacks by predators.

Bull kelps have strands about 30 meters long with floats to help keep the algae close to the surface within reach of the sunlight. Because California has a consideration amount of sunlight, the giant kelp can be found along the coastal regions. Because of this, California sea otters gather in the kelp forest and snooze during spring. To prevent themselves from being drift away by tides and currents, they anchor themselves by scraps of kelp around their body. In some aspects, sea otters are guardians of the region. Several creatures that shelter in the kelp have to venture in the opening to feed, like the bat ray. They feed in the sandy floor of the open sea, they use jet of water to blown the sand away and expose invertebrates. They will either eat or be

The lecture explained how the population of sea otters declined, due to the environmental pollution. First, the oil rigs along the Alaskan coat serve as an indication to pollution. This directly refutes the reading passage which states that predation was most likely the reason, since the bodies of the dead sea otters didn't wash on the shores.Secondly, the passage mention that the water samples that were extracted from the sea revealed the presence of chemicals. Again, this contradicts with the lecture which claims that the whales which the otters consume were not available anymore. Which had forced the sea otters to change their diet to include small sea animals. Thirdly, the lecture mentions that the decrease in sea otters population was

The area of research that I have selected is the effects of overfishing in the Sea Otter ecosystem off the coast of California. The effects caused by the fishing pressure on the ecosystem will have different outcomes, depending on the strength and the types of relationships of the organisms present. (4) Red Abalone populations have declined drastically, to the point of the abalone fishery collapse. Several factors have led up to the collapse including Withering Syndrome, where the organism loses the ability to attach itself to rocks, making it more susceptible to predation, or the organism can eventually wither and starve to death. Sea Urchins and Red Abalone are a part of the same ecosystem, and are competitors of each other.(5) Both organisms graze on macroalgae and are a primary food source for Sea Otters. Sea Otters occurred from the North Pacific Rim down to Baja California, Mexico, but now only occur in small isolated patches (9) It is understood that Sea Otter presence can characterize community structure, where they can control and determine the size of Sea Urchin and Red Abalone populations. In the absence of Sea Otters, “Urchin Barrens” are created from the overgrazing of macroalgae by Sea Urchin. In these areas the ecosystem have changed dramatically, due to the overfishing, or in this case the over hunting, of Sea Otters causing a trophic cascade.(7)In some areas, Sea Otters have been reintroduced, in other areas they were never removed, and in others they

Sea Otters as well as many other species are in danger because of Climate Change.The sudden change in climate has disturbed the ocean’s temperature which causes an insufficient amount of food for sea otters which causes the otters to be malnourished and starved. Because of the change in climate there has been a decrease in the amount of harp seals (Foley, 2013) which happens to be the killer whales main prey, because of this the killer whales have now turned to sea otters. Other likely threats to sea otters because of climate change are ocean acidification in the north Pacific, pathogen transport, marine invasive species, biotoxins withdrawn in bivalve prey, and the recurrence and intensity of storm events (Doroff and Burdin, 2015) . Sea otters have a noticeably solid influence on the wealth of kelp through the impact they have on sea urchins, said James A. Estes, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz who was a co-author on Schmitz 's 2014 review and on the original sea otter study. Otters eat urchins. Urchins eat kelp. So in ocean patches where otters are bountiful, urchin populations collapse and kelp tends to thrive (Estes,Cruz and Schmitz,2014). The study, led by Wilmers and published in 2012, found that across the otter 's range the animal could be indirectly at fault for getting rid of as much as 8.7 million tons of carbon dioxide, more than twice what an average

In a documentary film directed by Bill Wisenski, “Threatened: The Controversial Struggle of the Southern Sea Otter,” it reveals some of the reasons why the California sea otter population is declining. In addition, it shows the controversy surrounding the “No Otter Zone”. Furthermore, it ensures why the California sea otter population is important to the marine ecosystem. In the film, sea otter populations are endangered because of the significant impact by some human factors. In the 1700’s and 1800’s, fur traders hunted sea otter population to near extinction. Besides this, threatened events such as shipping and drilling oil across the Pacific and along coastal areas; the California sea otters is vulnerable to oil contamination. As a result,

Southern sea otter lives in kelp forests (a type of seaweed) along the Pacific coast, mainly off the coast of California. The marine mammals consume on average one-fourth of its weight daily including sea urchins, which are vital to support the kelp forests. By the result of sea otters preying on sea urchins, the consumption of kelp by sea urchins are kept at a constant rate allowing the forest to grow and thrive. This is highly important for biodiversity in the sea that is provided by the kelp forest, which is a key component of the three principles of sustainability. There are three ways that human can do to help prevent the premature extinction of southern sea otters. First, ethical issue that consists of the species being seen as vital

There are 16 different breeds of otters. Sea otter, Eurasian otter, Lutra, Lontra, oriental small clawed otter, Giant otter, smooth-coated otter, African clawless otter, Northern River otter, Asian small clawed otter, Congo clawless otter, marine otter, neotropical otter, South American otter, spotted-necked otter, and hairy nosed otter. This animal is pretty much always near water, they are usually found near both freshwater and coastal marine, such as, lakes, rivers, inland wetlands, coastal shorelines, marshes, and estuaries. Otters can be found in North America & other places as well. Otters eat fish, crabs, sea urchins, abalones, clams, mussels, and snails. They are preyed on by bobcats, coyotes, mountain lions, wolves, black bears, and

Sea otters, (Enhydra lutris), are considered a keystone species, and for this reason, can be useful indicators of nearshore ecosystem health (Kreuder et al. 2003). With the implementation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, southern sea otter (Enhydra lutris nereis) populations within their California range rebounded from post fur trade levels of approximately 50-60 in 1938, to more than 3000 today. However, growth rates have been slower than expected for this population (Riedman and Estes 1990). Definitive explanation for this is unclear, but contributing factors may be that sea otters face a range of physiological and environmental challenges to reproduce.

This issue is happening mostly on the North Pacific Coastline, because that is where they are located.  Hunters and fisherman kill the Sea Otters for their fur and because they are eating all

Otters will accept lower pay since we are afraid of confrontations. I agree with this statement since sometimes confrontations can go the wrong way. For relationships, otters tend to have high expectations for any relationships. I feel like having high expectations is healthy due to the fact the its your life and you should control it. Otters love to eat out and I love to eat in general.

Sea otters have been dieing at a high rate these past ten years. Scientists belive that bacteria is to blame, so it could infect our water aswell. Also, sea otters tell scientists a lot aboutother species in there enviroment, like fish, fish could be affected by otters leaving! As a matter of fact, sea otters are very smart sea mamels, if they want food, like clams, they can wedge the clams out of a tight spot, like rocks.

Sea otters (Enhydra lutris) are marine mammals capable of spending their entire lives in water. Being carnivorous in nature, they feed on sea urchins, crabs, fishes, mussels and clams. They are referred to as keystone species due to their profound impact on marine ecology. The interaction between sea otters, sea urchins and kelp forests has been studied as a model of the impact of predator-prey interaction on community ecology. Sea otters are keystone predators, whose presence has a far-reaching influence on the marine food web by affecting the population of sea urchins in particular, and kelp forests & other marine organisms in general. There has been a steep decline in sea otter populations due to water pollution and exploitation for

Dean et al. stated that there were around 61 dead sea otters that was collected in the northern Knight Island area, and they estimated that there was another 24 sea otter bodies that came from this area that were found in another location that was not Knight Island (Dean et al. 2000). 19 sea otters were rescued and nourished back to health from the Knight Island area which would all total to 165 sea otters found in that area (Dean et al. 2000). There was a survey performed between the years of 1993 to 1998 on the island and around it was observed that there were around 90 sea otters in the area, and in 1997 and 1998 there was only 76 sea otters (Dean et al. 2000). Before the oil crisis transpired there was about 237 sea otters found near the

To begin with, the professor explains that during research no dead bodies of otter s have been seen on the shore. She proclaims that if the decline is due to decrease in the otters’ immunity to fight the infection is the cause then the investigators should have the dead bodies as evidence. So the decline in the population is best supported by the predation theory. She says that predators eats the otter. This directly challenges the reading assertion that pollution cause by the industrial wastes along the coast was the major cause for