Return of the Sea Otter

by Todd McLeish

  The sea otter trade in California was over even earlier. It started in 1785, soon after the discovery of San Francisco Bay, and it was initially led by the Spanish, who were primarily interested in keeping the northern coast unexplored as a buffer against foreign infiltration into Southern California and Mexico. Spain even issued regulations governing otter hunting, but the trade there didn’t thrive. The California Natives were not skilled sea otter hunters and seemed uninterested in becoming so, since they had no need for furs in the warm climate. After 1800, American ships dominated the trade in California, even after the Russians arrived in 1809 and explored for otters as far south as Baja California when the animals were depleted in California waters. But by the 1820s, the California fur rush spiraled downward.

  In a history written of the Russian-American Company, it was reported that Russian traders sold nearly seventy-three thousand sea otter furs to China—along with thirty-four thousand beavers, fifteen thousand river otters, and more than one hundred thousand foxes of several varieties—between 1797 and 1821. Over a similar period, American vessels made 127 voyages from the North West Coast to China, and during the peak four years, nearly sixty thousand sea otter pelts were imported to China, along with twice as many beaver furs and ten times as many fur seal skins. It wasn’t until 1911 that sea otter hunting was finally banned by the International Fur Seal Treaty, but by then 123 ships had reported killing 198,284 sea otters, completely wiping out most populations. So it’s no wonder that one hundred years later the hapless sea otter remains a species of great concern.

  Chapter 2: Opposition

  BIG SUR, CALIFORNIA

  AT THE END of the fur trade, hardly a sea otter was to be found in all of California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, or Southeast Alaska. Thirteen small populations of otters were thought to have survived into the early 1900s in widely scattered groupings, mostly from Prince William Sound, Alaska, west across the Aleutian Islands. Some contained just a handful of animals, though, and not all of the groups survived for very long. It would take many decades filled with numerous gains and losses before sea otters returned to most of their historic range and their numbers were healthy again. In some places they still face hardships and controversies. Yet based on the conversations I have had with dozens of people, from schoolchildren to senior citizens, and the many more I have observed at aquariums and viewing sites, sea otters have achieved a level of popularity surpassed by few other animals.

  But their popularity isn’t universal. In fact, the range of emotions inspired by sea otters runs the gamut from joy to hatred, depending largely on whether you perceive them to have a negative economic effect. And in California, that range of emotions has been displayed often in public meetings, regulatory hearings, and protests for more than fifty years. While the overwhelming public sentiment is now largely in favor of the otters, it wasn’t always that way.

  Passage of the International Fur Seal Treaty of 1911 and the US Fur Seal Act of 1912 provided a level of protection to the few sea otters that survived the fur trade, although the latter legislation protected them only in waters beyond three miles offshore, where hardly any otters roamed. A year later, the state of California passed legislation to fully protect sea otters within its boundaries. By then, however, it was believed that sea otters had been completely extirpated from the state, down from about sixteen thousand before the fur trade. But it wasn’t long before staff of the California Department of Fish and Game (now Department of Fish and Wildlife) discovered a group of about fifty sea otters not far south of Carmel in Big Sur, a stretch of rugged and remote coastline where the Santa Lucia Mountains rise from the Pacific Ocean. According to Lilian Carswell, the southern sea otter recovery coordinator for the US Fish and Wildlife Service, that was when those governing the state of California first became proponents of sea otters. “They loved them and wanted to protect them and thought of them as this precious little jewel that had survived beyond all odds,” she said.

  California Fish and Game officers were said to have carefully guarded the animals, and ranchers in the area even kept an eye out for them by reporting sightings of poachers. The otters’ existence remained a well-kept secret for more than twenty years until Highway 1 opened between San Simeon and Monterey and provided the public with easy access to the coastline. In 1938, the otters were officially rediscovered by Mr. and Mrs. H. G. Sharpe when, as the story goes, they were testing a newly repaired telescope at the bridge over Bixby Creek along the Big Sur coast and observed a number of sea otters. By then the otter population was believed to be 100 to 150 animals, though later estimates have suggested there could have been as many as 300. Local residents became so concerned that the animals could be harmed that they insisted Fish and Game officials assign a warden to guard them. Three years later, the state established the California Sea Otter Game Refuge, a region encompassing the entire known range of the animals at that time and within which it was illegal to possess firearms. The otters expanded their range, and the refuge was expanded in 1959 to encompass the entire coast from the Carmel River in the north to Santa Rosa Creek in the south.

  During the century or so that sea otters were almost entirely absent from their former range along the California coast, populations of marine invertebrates like abalone, Dungeness crabs, and sea urchins had increased to levels of abundance not previously recorded in nature. Without the otters around to keep them in check, these invertebrates were found in such great numbers that commercial fisheries became established. And when the otters began to return to their previous haunts in the 1940s, ‘50s, and ‘60s and shared in the harvest, the fishermen were not pleased. It was the abalone fishermen who were initially the most vocal.

  Abalones are marine snails in the genus Haliotis that are related to oysters, clams, and other shellfish. They are primitive creatures with simple anatomies and live in large domed shells described by some as ear shaped. (Haliotis means “sea ear.”) Eight of the 130 species worldwide are found in California, where some species grow as large as ten inches in diameter. Abalones live on the rocky seafloor in kelp forests and amid other seaweeds, ranging from the intertidal zone to as deep as five hundred feet, though most are found in shallow waters.

  Chinese immigrants started the abalone industry on the California coast in the 1860s, and by 1879, they were harvesting as much as four million pounds of meat and shell per year, primarily red, green, and black abalone, the three species found closest to shore. Populations of those species quickly became depleted, prompting some California counties to establish laws prohibiting the harvesting of abalones except in deeper water. That’s when Japanese immigrants became the major players in the industry by using abalone-harvesting methods from their home country—deep-diving suits and dive helmets—that allowed them to access abalone farther offshore. When Japanese Americans were forced into internment camps during World War II, Caucasian divers took over the industry, working from boats tended by crew members who followed the divers as they walked on the seafloor and collected their catch. After the fishery reached its peak of 5.4 million pounds in 1957, it slowly began to decline. The fishermen, of course, blamed the decline on the growing population of sea otters expanding their range. But that was only a small part of the story.

  * * *

  IN THE LATE 1940s, the abalone fishermen had begun to voice their displeasure over the competition they faced from sea otters, and by the 1960s they had gained the attention of enough local politicians that the California Senate Fact Finding Committee on Natural Resources established a subcommittee on sea otters. A public hearing in 1963 on the effect of sea otters on abalones was intended to seek input about the biology and ecology of sea otters and the perceived economic impact they were having on the abalone industry. Chaired by Senator Fred Farr of Monterey, the hearing was attended by a large assemblage representing environmental groups, abalone divers, academic biologists, staff of the California Department of Fish and Game, and many others, including Marga
ret Owings, a conservationist and resident of Big Sur who would later start the influential nonprofit group Friends of the Sea Otter.

  In their testimony, the fishermen tried to paint a picture of the devastation they claimed the sea otters left in their wake—nothing but broken, empty abalone shells in areas that had previously been highly productive fishing areas. One fisherman said that before sea otters had arrived in the waters off the town of Gorda, he had harvested 176 dozen abalone during a one-day trip in 1947, while another claimed to have regularly taken 40 dozen abalone every few months for several years in the area of the San Simeon lighthouse until the sea otters arrived. They apparently didn’t consider that the vast numbers of abalone they were harvesting could have any effect on the sustainability of the abalone population.

  Environmentalists and natural-resource managers in attendance at the hearing did their best to correct some of the fishermen’s claims. Several, including National Geographic photographer Tom Myers, provided a historical perspective that the fishermen had ignored. “The sea otter and the abalone lived together for who knows how many millions of years before us, and the sea otter never wiped out the abalone,” he said. Others suggested that it was the human harvest of abalone that was the real problem and that the sea otters were simply being made a scapegoat, especially when considering that the number of licensed abalone fishermen had skyrocketed from 11 to 505 in the thirty-five years before the hearing. (The total number of abalone fishermen reached 880 five years later.)

  While the fishermen and their supporters continued to hammer away at the economic value of the abalone fishery and their belief in its primacy in the debate, others noted the small number of fishermen who benefitted from the fishery, the aesthetic values of the otters, and the biological value the otters provided to the ecosystem. In the end, however, all agreed that the only solution would be to segregate the otters from the abalone fishing grounds. Yet it prompted Myers to raise a question that would have implications on the resolution of the sea otter debate for the next half century: “If by chance you are successful in moving the sea otter, how would you keep him from coming back down? They are fast swimmers, and they seem to want to go wherever they wish to go.”

  The senate committee eventually concluded that a sea otter relocation program would be unwise, siding temporarily with the environmental community but leaving unaddressed most of the issues raised by the fishermen, who remained vocal and repeatedly pressed their demands in the political arena. It was a time that Margaret Owings described later as one when “a single fishing boat could come in with 500 pounds of abalone,” but “one little otter floating along on its back…was all they [the fishermen] needed to see absolute red.” In 1967, the state senate passed a resolution reversing its previous conclusion and directed Fish and Game to “determine the feasibility and possible means of confining sea otters within the protection of the existing refuge or other means that will…lessen the possibilities of resource conflicts.” It was a directive that made the fishermen feel that progress was being made on their behalf, though how it was to be achieved was uncertain. It also motivated sea otter lovers like Owings to take action.

  Margaret Owings was a member of the California State Parks Commission and an ardent conservationist who had already spearheaded efforts to prevent the legalized killing of California sea lions, remove a bounty on mountain lions, and divert a highway away from old-growth redwood trees in state parks. After several years of attending meetings of citizen committees and public hearings and being verbally attacked by abalone fishermen, she wrote a letter to the Monterey Peninsula Herald in 1968 that was published on the front page under the headline “Do Sea Otters Have Any Friends?” She wrote in her letter that “the return of the otter to the immediate area of our coastal waters has given thousands of visitors a rare pleasure and we, living along the coast, can feel privileged to be able to watch its delightful activities. Yet I am concerned for the welfare of the otter. As has been true with practically every wild animal in the vicinity of man, the otter is thought to compete with an economic value that man claims as his own.” She pulled no punches, noting that the population of sea otters had declined in the previous decade and that dead otters were washing ashore with wounds from gunshots and stabbings. She also highlighted the threats from pollution, oil spills, and the fur trade.

  Seeing that letter in print galvanized her to start Friends of the Sea Otter, thinking she could probably resolve the issues surrounding the sea otter and the fishermen in “a few years.” But it took a few decades longer than that. From its origins at Owings’ dining table, and with the help of surgeon James Matteson and with scientific guidance from biologist Jud Vandevere, the leading sea otter biologist of his day, Friends of the Sea Otter grew to five hundred members after its first year, and launched a research program and a group of volunteer “otter watchers” to learn about otter biology and behavior and assist with the state’s monthly otter census. Through her sheer force of will, Owings spent decades leading efforts to protect sea otters in California by lobbying politicians in Sacramento and Washington, DC, to establish policies to benefit otters while rallying scientists, conservationists, and the general public to support the cause.

  The group initially opposed the relocation of sea otters to preserve the commercial abalone fishery, but that is exactly what the state had in mind. The first step in the state’s plan was to remove up to twenty otters from the area off Cambria and Point Estero, where the greatest conflict with fishermen occurred, and relocate them to the northern part of the sea otter refuge or place them in captivity. If that could be accomplished successfully, the relocation of additional otters would be considered. But even finding appropriate relocation sites was difficult. At each of the six proposed sites, conflicts arose from commercial shellfishermen who didn’t want sea otters to do to their harvest what the abalone fishermen claimed the otters did to theirs. And initial experiments conducted by Fish and Game to capture and relocate sea otters failed miserably, as the otters either swam right back to their original location or died during the relocation process.

  Many minds were changed about the relocation plan, however, when in January 1969 an oil-drilling platform owned by Union Oil ruptured and released one hundred thousand barrels of oil into the Santa Barbara channel. The worst oil-platform spill in US history at that time, it killed thirty-seven thousand seabirds and had a lasting effect on the marine environment in the area. Since no sea otters ranged that far south, none were killed, but it raised alarms among the sea otter conservation community. Margaret Owings and Friends of the Sea Otter imagined the possible extinction of the southern sea otter if an oil spill occurred within the otters’ range. Perhaps, they concluded, the establishment of several populations of sea otters through relocation efforts would ensure the animal’s survival in the face of a potential future oil spill.

  Although reaction to the spill heralded an era of environmental conservation throughout the country, sea otters in California didn’t benefit. The election of Ronald Reagan as governor in 1969 and his appointment of Raymond Arnett as the new director of the California Department of Fish and Game led to a reversal in the agency’s approach to sea otter conservation. “Fish and Game changed its tune entirely,” said Lilian Carswell, the Fish and Wildlife Service biologist charged with managing the recovery plan since the mid-2000s. “Whereas they had been quite protective of sea otters before, they suddenly seemed extremely concerned about the fisheries and way less concerned about otters. The way they put it was, ‘We have a secure population of otters here, we’re not worried about them, and we just want to keep the rest of the area clear of otters so we can have all the fisheries we want.’ ”

  * * *

  THE NEW DIRECTION taken by the California government with regard to otters, which was largely in response to the small but vocal group of abalone fishermen, led to a slew of bills and proposals that enraged environmentalists. One bill introduced in the state legislature i
n 1970 would have required the removal of any otter that wandered outside the sea otter refuge, and the language in the bill suggested that the animals may be killed. Despite the bill’s sponsor’s backtracking on the controversial language, Friends of the Sea Otter responded with a petition containing fifteen thousand signatures opposing the measure. No vote on the bill was ever taken. While the public response to the bill and other proposals questioned whether Fish and Game’s new direction was in the best interest of the public and the state, as the agency claimed, it did not bring about a change in perspective among Fish and Game leadership. Instead, the agency developed a plan for what it called “zonal management,” which would create separate geographic regions for sea otters and shellfishing. How that would be achieved was uncertain, in light of the agency’s failed relocation experiments.

  But the state’s plan would never be implemented. The passage of the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972 and the Endangered Species Act in 1973 saw to that. Those laws didn’t stop the fishing industry from promoting its concerns or the conservation community from advocating for its own, but the California Department of Fish and Game no longer had jurisdiction over sea otters. Under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, management authority for sea otters was transferred to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and California officials weren’t happy about it. The state petitioned to retain responsibility for managing its otter populations, but just about everything it proposed was rejected as contrary to the principles of the federal legislation.