Sea otters rebound but struggle to regain historic range
MOSS LANDING, Calif. — While threatened southern sea otters bob and sun in the gentle waves of this central California estuary, wildlife experts up and down the West Coast are struggling to figure out how to restore the crucial coastal predator to an undersea world that’s falling apart in their absence.
Southern sea otters, nearly wiped out by centuries of industrial-scale hunting for their fur pelts, have rebounded from as few as 50 survivors in the 1930s to more than 3,000 today, thanks to federal and state protection.
But there’s a problem. Southern sea otters, a top carnivore that normally helps keep other populations in check and ecosystems in balance, “are kind of stuck,” says Teri Nicholson, a senior research biologist at the nearby Monterey Bay Aquarium
Despite decades of government protection, southern sea otters today still occupy only about a fourth of their historic range. Federal wildlife policy calls for waiting for the otters to spread out again on their own. The otters’ habitat hasn’t really budged beyond their current central California enclave, however, over the past 20 years.