By DANA TIMS/YachatsNews.com
A long-awaited federal report says it is “feasible” to reintroduce sea otters to their historical range along parts of the West Coast, including Oregon.
The 200-page report, prepared by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under a directive from Congress, does not provide a recommendation as to whether sea otter reintroduction should take place. It does, however, say that sea otters are a “keystone species” that play a fundamental role in the “ecological health of nearshore ecosystems.”
“If sea otters are reintroduced to northern California and Oregon, it would benefit both otters and nearshore marine systems,” Craig Rowland, acting state supervisor for the service’s Oregon office, said in a statement accompanying the report’s release. “Additional work is needed to evaluate the possible impacts of a potential reintroduction as well as measures to offset these impacts.”
Rowland said that while the agency anticipates an “overall socioeconomic benefit to coastal communities, we also recognize that some local shellfish fisheries could be affected.”
The latter point addresses concerns by some commercial fishing interests, who generally acknowledge the benefits of otter reintroduction, but also want further study before any steps are taken to capture otters in the few areas where they are thriving on the West Coast and relocate them to waters off the Oregon coast.
“At first blush, this report reiterates what we have been saying for some time,” said Tim Novotny, communications director for the Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission. “There could definitely be some benefits, but any risks or concerns need to be addressed beforehand.”
Hunted to extinction
With just a handful of highly publicized exceptions, sea otters have remained absent from Oregon’s coastal waters since being hunted to extinction during the maritime fur trade of the late 1800s.
The last known wild sea otter was killed in Oregon in 1906 at Otter Rock near Depoe Bay.
While otters once lived across the north Pacific Rim from the northern islands of Japan to Baja California, by 1911 their ranks were winnowed down to only a few small populations.
Today, so-called northern sea otters live in the waters off Alaska, British Columbia and Washington state. Their southern cousins live along the central coast of California and at San Nicolas Island in southern California.
Otter advocates hope that a reintroduction effort in Oregon could help bridge those now-separated populations, while also adding a keystone species capable of playing a fundamental role in the natural food web.
Sea otters can do this, they say, by preying on sea urchins, which left unchecked can decimate the sea grass beds and kelp forests that provide habitat for countless ocean species.
“We are thrilled with this report because it really sets the stage for talks among the stakeholders who are critical to conversations moving forward,” said Robert Bailey, board president for the Elakha Alliance, the Siletz-based conservation group that has produced its own pro-otter feasibility study. “I think we are really ready to burrow in and work at the local level to make sure everyone’s concerns are expressed and addressed.”
Although sea otters were found, historically, along much of the Oregon coast, their best chance of success here will likely be to the south between Coos Bay and Brookings, Bailey said. That’s where otter-friendly habitat, including kelp forests and rocky sea beds, is most common.
Oregon attempted reintroduction, along with a collection of other sites on the West Coast, from 1969 to 1972. Otters were released in Oregon at Cape Arago and Port Orford. They persisted for about a decade before the population “petered out,” Michele Zwartjes, field supervisor at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s office in Newport, told the Salem Statesman-Journal.
“In the previous cases, reintroductions used adults and subadults who maintain a very strong homing instinct — meaning that many of the animals immediately try to return to their home territory,” she told the newspaper. “We often saw a 90 percent loss of animals and the ones that remained, they would tend to reach a tipping point where the population made it or not. In Washington, they did make it, while in Oregon, they didn’t.”
Siletz-based alliance
In addition to the eco-tourism possibilities of sea otter reintroduction, Bailey said the animals also have great cultural appeal due, in part, to story-telling role they played for a number of Oregon Indian tribes. The word Elakha, for instance, was taken from Clatsop and Chinook Indian languages.
He said that continuing fascination was on full display last November, when a lone otter – probably a northern sea otter who swam down from Washington – showed up for a few days at Yaquina Head.
“I drove over there and the excitement among everyone who gathered to watch this otter was palpable,” Bailey said. “It was just amazing to watch the public reaction. It’s the kind of thing we hope to have in the future.”
Ahead, according to the federal report, are a series of “structured decision-making workshops with scientific experts and key stakeholders to explore reintroduction options, including the identification of potential reintroduction sites.”
Plans also call for an in-depth socioeconomic studies and development of pilot studies or small-scale experimental reintroductions.
“Altogether, given the work we need to do at the community level, we are probably looking at five to six years to actually see reintroductions start,” Bailey said. “I don’t think it’s going to be 10 years, but it’s not going to be one or two, either.”
- Dana Tims is an Oregon freelance writer who contributes regularly to YachatsNews.com. He can be reached at DanaTims24@gmail.com
To read the full report, go to https://www.fws.gov/project/