Aren't They Adorable!
Sea otters may be the smallest of the marine mammals, but they are the biggest stars of the Coastal Naturalist Presentations* aboard BC Ferries each summer. Sure they are only hand puppets during the shows, but audiences are nonetheless fascinated by these endangered animals.
Sea otters may be the smallest of the marine mammals, but they are the biggest stars of the Coastal Naturalist Presentations* aboard BC Ferries each summer. Sure they are only hand puppets during the shows, but audiences are nonetheless fascinated by these endangered animals.
Not to be confused with their river otter cousins that have longer tails, enjoy a lot of time on land, and favour the river over the ocean, sea otters rarely leave the water and are therefore tough to spot. If you’re lucky, you may spot sea otters swimming on their backs along the north and central coasts of Vancouver Island, but numbers in BC remain low ever since otters were nearly hunted to extinction during the fur trades that began in the mid 1700s.
What made them so valuable to humans? Sea otters have one of the thickest fur coats in the animal kingdom. According to the Vancouver Aquarium, the current home of three otters named Milo, Elfin, and Tanu, an adult pelt contains between 800 million to one billion individual hairs. When they aren’t busy lounging or eating up to 30 percent of their body weight each day, sea otters spend 15 percent or more of their day grooming all of that fur!
Fortunately, in 1911, a treaty placed a ban on the harvesting of sea otters, but their population didn’t recover until after 1972, when 89 otters were brought from Alaska to the Island in an attempt to stabilize the ecosystem, which has been overrun with sea urchins, the sea otter’s favourite food.
But the West Coast Sea Otter Group, a conservation and education group based in Bamfield, believes that sea otters aren’t yet safe. The largest threat to sea otter recovery remains oil spills. According to the group, as little as a teaspoon of oil is enough to destroy the water repellent and insulating properties of sea otter fur, thereby causing heat loss and potential death by hypothermia.
Fortunately, many groups like the West Coast Sea Otter Group and The Habitat Stewardship Program for Species at Risk, continue to protect these special sea otters and other unique marine life from coming as close to extinction as they were 100 years ago.
*The Coastal Naturalist Program was created four years ago by Parks Canada and BC Ferries. The 30-minute presentations teach visitors about the beauty surrounding them on their way to and from Vancouver Island.
FAST FACTS:
- Sea otters are the largest members of the weasel family.
- Sea otters use rocks to access their food, making them one of few animal groups that use tools.
- Groups of sea otters often rest together in large single-sex groups known as rafts.
- Unlike river otters, sea otters only birth one pup at a time.
- With so much fur, sea otters can get away with having barely any flesh on their bodies.
- The sea otters are one of the few marine animals that carry out all functions of life in the water but their bodies rarely get wet.
This article was written by Julie McManus of Island Times Magazine.
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