Sea Otters Essay

Sea otters (Enhydra lutris) are in the order Carnivora and the family Mustelidae. OF all the animals in the family, the sea otter is the only one that is completely marine. The others are either land or partially land and partially marine. Like all animals, sea otters need to eat to survive and grow. Sea otters are classified as carnivores. One of their choice prey options is the sea urchin. However, such is not always the case. According to STUDY 1, “ as sea otter numbers increase and the abundance of their preferred prey is reduced by predation, the consumption of less preferred prey types apparently becomes profitable, thus explaining an increased dietary breadth at the level of the population” [1]. This should be fairly obvious. If a sea
While the causes of some cycles are known, the causes of others are not” [3]. The Aleutian Islands are off the coast of Alaska in the Pacific Ocean, reaching towards Russia. One of the known causes of depletion occurred in America (and other countries) in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In fact, the activities of humans during this time period almost caused an extinction of sea otters [3]. Sea otter fur was highly desired during this time. Hunting and poaching of the sea otter for its fur almost caused its extinction. Russian fur traders almost depleted this creature from the Aleutian Islands. Due to this travesty, sea otters became a protected animal in 1911 [3]. This was a known cause of a recovery in the sea otter populations. The recovery lasted until the 1980’s. That was over half a century of recovery. In fact, during the 1950’s, sea otter populations had almost returned to where they were prior to the hunting epidemic [3]. According to STUDY 3 they had reached “pre-commercial hunting levels around some of the islands” [3]. An unknown depletion of sea otter populations followed this recovery. Around the turn of the millennium, sea otter populations were declining at a rate of 17-18 percent per year