Scientists Call Otter Project Unrealistic : Wildlife: Biologists now want to stop moving sea otters to San Nicolas Island and let the main herd roam the entire coastline.

Five years after embarking on an effort to set up a spinoff colony of California sea otters on San Nicolas Island, scientists now say the project is unrealistic and will not help save the species from extinction.

But U. S. Fish and Wildlife biologists have stopped short of calling the program a failure--a declaration that would require them to capture the 15 animals that live at the remote island and move them back to the Monterey area.

Wildlife scientists and members of the Sea Otter Recovery Team, a group of experts assembled from across the nation, say recapturing the animals is a difficult and stressful process for divers and animals and not in the best interest of the species.

“We have a fairly stable group of animals on San Nicolas over the last 2 1/2 years, and there has been some reproduction,” said James Estes, a Fish and Wildlife research biologist and member of the recovery team. “But we really don’t know yet whether the population will grow on its own or whether it will dwindle to extinction.”

Instead of recapturing the animals, Estes said, biologists should leave them on San Nicolas--at least for now--and monitor the small colony for growth. But they have no plans to transfer more animals to the island 60 miles off the Ventura County coast.

Since the program began in 1987, 139 otters were taken to San Nicolas from the Monterey area. Of those, about half swam back to the main herd in the Monterey area. Another 11 have died. Except for the 15 at the island, the rest are unaccounted for. Either they returned home, swam elsewhere, were shot or died from natural causes.

In addition, the federal scientists plan to recommend, in a report due out this year, that the main herd of 2,000 animals off the Monterey County coast should be allowed to roam the entire California coastline.

That suggestion has angered the commercial fishing industry and alarmed the state Fish and Game Commission.

“Over time, we would lose the entire Channel Islands,” said Steve Rebuck, spokesman for the California Abalone Assn.

State Fish and Game commissioners, who withdrew support from the program in 1990, plan to call federal scientists on the carpet at a meeting in San Diego Nov. 5 and 6 for continuing what commissioners consider a failed effort.

“We need a way to preserve the otters, the shellfish and the commercial industry,” said Albert Taucher, an appointee of former Gov. George Deukmejian and one of the most outspoken opponents to the program on the Fish and Game Commission. “I don’t know how to do it, but I consider the program a failure and I think everybody should come back to the table.”

The expected clash between the federal and state agencies and the commercial fishing industry at the November commission meeting would be only one of many since the scientific experiment was conceived in the early 1980s.

But the close of the fifth year of the program and the expiration of the federal permit to transfer animals to the island mark several reversals in the positions of many of the parties involved.

First, federal scientists say two things have changed since the infancy of the program: The population of the species, which was static or declining through the 1970s, began a steady rise of 5% a year through the 1980s.

Second, the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska proved to the scientists that a small colony of otters, even if it were successful and growing, would not be enough to save a species in the face of such a catastrophic event.

“That spill spread over 500 or 600 miles and killed many more otters than there are in the whole California population,” Estes said. “The more appropriate strategy now is to enhance the existing population until the time it reaches a level where it is no longer threatened.”

Fish and Wildlife scientists are revising their California Sea Otter Recovery Plan, which will for the first time specify the number of otters the main herd should have before the species can be taken off the federal threatened list.

Federal scientists also no longer assert that it is possible to keep the voracious shellfish-eating otters contained on San Nicolas Island and away from nearby commercial fishing beds in surrounding Channel Islands and elsewhere along the coast.

As a condition of their permit to transfer the animals to San Nicolas, Fish and Wildlife officials promised to capture any otters that swam away from the island and into the so-called no-otter or management zone, which stretches from San Luis Obispo to the Mexican border, excluding a small area around San Nicolas.

State Fish and Game and fishing industry officials originally protested that the promise to capture the quick and wily otters would be difficult to keep at best.

But now, in an apparent reversal of their earlier positions, both former opponents say the animals can be kept on San Nicolas and out of the management zone.

“If enough time, effort and funds were expended, it could be viable,” said Bill Maxwell, senior marine biologist with state Fish and Game. “Our researchers are not convinced yet that (U. S. Fish and Wildlife) has put enough effort into finding out if it is viable.”

Teams of divers assigned to capture otters that stray into the management zone for return to the Monterey area have so far managed to nab only 15 of the animals in management zone waters. Many more have been sighted, but not caught.

“We can do it,” said Estes of the recovery team. “But only if people are willing to go out and shoot them. And that’s not an acceptable solution in this state.”

Of the original 139 otters transferred to San Nicolas, seven have been found among those captured in the management zone, including six in the commercially valuable waters around San Miguel Island.

One of the San Nicolas otters was spotted on Anacapa Island in 1990, frolicking and attempting to mate with harbor seals. The animal was captured and re-released in Monterey. But an otter with the same behavior pattern was recently spotted in Mexico, said Greg Sanders, Fish and Wildlife Service biologist at the Ventura office.

“We nicknamed him Phokey, for one who was attracted to harbor seals, which is the genus Phoca ,” Sanders said.

Phokey represents only one example of difficulties with a program to contain the otters within a specified range, Estes said.

“It’s a kind of Catch-22,” Estes said. “The Fish and Wildlife Service could be vulnerable to a lawsuit if they don’t stand by what they promised. But unfortunately, what the law says and what is best for the sea otter may not be the same things.”

Sea Otter Management

Since 1987, 139 threatened California sea otters have been moved to San Nicolas Island in an effort to set up a spinoff colony and save the species from extinction. As a condition of the program permit, federal biologists must try to capture any animals that stray into the management zone. Scientists now say the program is ineffective, and may opt to abandon the management zone and allow the otters to roam the entire California coast.