CALIFORNIA IN BRIEF : SANTA ROSA : Study Sought Before Otters Are Moved

Sea otters may be cute, but a proposal by wildlife officials to transplant the whiskered creatures from the southern state coast to the Sonoma County coast has alarmed commercial shellfish harvesters.

The county Board of Supervisors has asked the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to prepare an environmental impact report before it places the amphibians in coastal waters.

Board chairman Ernie Carpenter, whose district includes the coast, said the federal government hasn’t looked at the threat the otters could pose to shellfish, which is the otter’s primary food.