Natural Perspectives:

Before Spaniards arrived in Southern California in the late 1700s, sea otters thrived off our local coast. Healthy kelp forests grew at Palos Verdes, Crystal Cove and anywhere that kelp could find a rock on which to anchor. The kelp fed abalone and sea urchins, which in turn fed sea otters.

Local tribes of Native Americans — the Acjachemem (Juanenos) and Tongva (Gabrielenos) — relied on the sea for much of their food. They built ocean-going canoes of beveled, overlapping redwood planks, using stone, bone and antler tools, fiber cordage and tar as caulk. From these 10- to 30-foot-long canoes, called tomols, they paddled out to sea. They harpooned marine mammals such as sea lions, harbor seals and sea otters to eat as well as for their fur.

The local native people didn’t wear much in the way of clothing. In summer, cords tied around the waist for men and aprons or skirts for women sufficed. Rabbit skin robes were added in winter for warmth, with yucca fiber sandals. Women made their aprons of either grasses or tanned skins. Sea otter pelts were the preferred hides for women’s skirts, with deerskin or grass as backup materials.

Sea otters and humans coexisted in balance from Baja to Alaska for millennia. The sea otters ate large quantities of abalone and sea urchins, which in turn grazed on the kelp forests. This may sound bad to lovers of abalone, but it isn’t. By keeping the abalone and sea urchins in check, the sea otters contributed to the health of the ecosystem. In the absence of otters, the abalone and sea urchins would eat the kelp down to nothing, thus threatening their own survival. This is why sea otters are called a keystone species. Remove them, and the kelp ecosystem collapses.

Trouble began for sea otters in the 1740s when Russian whalers discovered them off the Aleutian islands. Sea otter fur was especially prized because of its softness and density. Because sea otters spend their entire lives at sea, often in cold weather, their fur is exceptionally dense. In fact, one inch of sea otter hide contains as many hairs as an entire German shepherd.

Wealthy Chinese of the late 1700s were especially fond of otter fur, which they used to border their lightweight silk garments. The added weight of otter fur kept the silk draped nicely against their bodies. When Russian whalers found that otter fur was more profitable than whaling, the wholesale slaughter of sea otters began.

The Russians worked their way toward Alaska, killing off sea otters, blue foxes and fur seals as they went. At the peak of the hunt, they collected 200,000 otter pelts a year. Unfortunately, there weren’t enough otters to support that level of “take” for long.

Although the Aleuts had lived in balance with otters and fur seals for thousands of years, the populations of these marine mammals couldn’t stand up to the onslaught of the Russians. By the early 1800s, the Russians had killed off much of the northern population of sea otters, and had moved on to Alta California where the southern population lived.

With so much money to be made from otter pelts, Americans joined the hunt. In 1801, 15 American ships plied the Pacific Coast from Alaska to Southern California, hunting sea otters. The hapless otters died in droves.

The harvest began to decline precipitously as otters were hunted to near-extinction. By 1828, only 500 otters could be found to be killed. The last hunt was in 1910, but no otters were found.

Fortunately, a few otters survived in isolated Alaskan coves here and there. Gradually, the population in Alaska began to recover. By the mid-1960s, there were an estimated 30,000 sea otters in Alaska. Now there are 100,000 to 200,000 there.

California’s otters were thought to have been extirpated. Then in 1938, a small group of otters was found in an isolated cove along Big Sur. The southern population of sea otters belatedly received threatened species protection in 1977. The California population now has grown to more than 2,000. Almost all of those otters live in Monterey Bay and environs.

Vic and I went up to Monterey last week to see the otters. These 5-foot-long mammals were easy to spot, lying on their backs in the kelp, munching on abalone, sea urchins, crabs and clams.

The good news is that the otter population is outgrowing Monterey Bay. They’ve ventured away from the bay, with a small group of 100 living south of Point Conception. Some day in the not too distant future, we may be able to see them again locally. If they return, our struggling kelp forests should become much healthier.

But sea otters face yet another challenge, again due to the activities of humans. Although people are no longer shooting the otters, people have cats, which harbor a parasite called Toxoplasma gondii. Cats that roam outdoors use gardens and lawns for their litter boxes. Their feces wash into the ocean during storms, carrying Toxoplasma into the marine environment.

Once in the ocean, the parasite attacks sea otters, causing fatal brain infections. More than 60% of dead sea otters are found to be infected with Toxoplasma. This nasty parasite is capable of infecting almost any mammal, including humans.

This is just one more reason why people should keep their cats indoors.

Even though we don’t have otters off the coast of Orange County yet, they’re coming. Visit www.otterproject.org for more information on saving the southern sea otter population.

VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and environmentalists. They can be reached at [email protected] .