Keeping a Worried Watch Over Wayward Otters

Lolling on its back munching on a sea urchin, the trespasser with the furry black muzzle spotted the people on the boat just as they spotted it.

“There’s one,” said Steve Shimek, squinting into binoculars at the California sea otter.

The otter rolled over and stretched its torso upright to get a better look at its observers. Then, in the blink of an eye, it ducked into the water, a sleek, round rump the last part to vanish.

That otter, and eight others spotted this day, aren’t supposed to be here. This magnificent stretch of coastline, just east of Point Conception in Santa Barbara County, is off limits to otters.

Nothing short of an act of Congress turned these waters into an otters-forbidden zone. Federal biologists aren’t supposed to let otters venture this far down the coast, as part of a deal struck with fishermen who say the animals rob them of their catch.

Now, urchin fishermen claim that the 1987 law isn’t being enforced, and they have sued. The voracious otters, they say, continue to edge farther down the coast, picking the ocean bottom clean.

Yet federal biologists are reluctant to round up marine mammals for fear of pushing them closer to extinction.

The population of California sea otters, once thought to have been wiped out by 19th century fur traders, has been relatively stable at about 2,200 animals for the last few years. But the species, listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, isn’t rebounding either. A high proportion of adults die from disease, parasites or entanglement in fishing gear.

On occasion, frustrated fishermen have taken matters into their own hands. In the last year, one otter carcass washed ashore with bullet fragments in it. Another was found with a puncture wound suspiciously like a bullet hole.

So Shimek, the founder of the nonprofit Otter Project, chartered a boat in January and hired an otter observer to keep tabs on the cute, button-nose mammals with silky fur coats. Shimek hopes the presence of Olin Cohan, a substitute teacher turned otter baby sitter, will deter fishermen from the “malicious” killing of otters that compete for the same valuable catch.

Thirty-six times so far this year, Cohan has motored around the kelp beds between Santa Barbara and Point Conception to tally otter noses. The highest count was 68. The lowest was four.

At Cojo Anchorage, following his routine, Cohan paddled to shore in a kayak, pulled off his shirt and ran several miles up and down the remote beach in search of washed-up otters. So far, he hasn’t found a single one.

“If you deter something, how do you know it?” asked Shimek, who joined Cohan on his rounds last week. “The urchin divers know we’re here. When we get back, they’ll tell me where we’ve been.”

Bruce Steele, a veteran sea urchin fisherman from Santa Barbara, dismisses the Otter Project’s endeavors as a ploy for public attention and donations.

“If you look at it statistically, the record of shooting is very, very low on the list of otter deaths,” Steele said. “Environmental groups out there looking for shooting victims is great press. But they should be trying to find out why diseases are killing otters.”

Federal wildlife biologists tend to agree, noting that killing an otter violates state and federal laws.

“We have not determined there is a big problem with fishermen shooting otters,” said Greg Sanders, sea otter coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “It has happened in the past and will happen in the future. But we see other more pressing problems.”

The agency is reevaluating its plans to relocate otters that venture beyond Point Conception.

The commitment came in the late 1980s, when biologists relocated 140 otters to San Nicolas Island, 60 miles off the coast. The idea was to create a reserve population offshore in case an oil spill or other catastrophe wiped out the near-shore populations.

In exchange for moving otters to prime urchin fishing grounds around San Nicolas, federal biologists and Congress agreed that no otters would be allowed to migrate to urchin-rich waters beyond Point Conception.

But now that only 20 otters remain around San Nicolas, biologists worry that such relocations don’t work, and worse, could jeopardize the existence of the southern sea otter. In this spring’s survey, the fluctuating population of southern sea otters declined by 6.7%, to 2,161, in coastal waters between Half Moon Bay and Santa Barbara. A decade ago, the population was 2,101.

Jim Estes, a marine biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, worries because recovery of the species has shown so little progress.

Infectious diseases and parasites, some linked to polluted runoff, claim an alarmingly high number of adult otters. Shark attacks and entanglement in fishing nets and, more recently, live-fish traps, present threats too. About 5% of otter deaths are attributed to gunshots.

Most often, though, the cause of death is unknown.

So scientists are trying to learn more about the animal’s habits. Launching a new study, biologists have implanted radio transmitters in dozens of otters to monitor their behavior and vital signs as they dive and forage for urchins, crabs, clams, snails and abalone. Similar radio-tagging was done 20 years ago.

“Our basic game plan,” Estes said, “is to compare how animals live and die in three parts of their range in contrast with similar populations in the ‘80s” when their numbers were growing.

Two researchers hopped aboard Otter Project’s chartered boat last week to hunt for the telltale blip of radio waves. Holding antennas aloft, they picked up the signals of six of the 14 radio-tagged animals that reside around the Cojo Anchorage.

“That’s No. 216,” said Jason Hill, one of the researchers, as an otter popped to the surface.

“Cute guys, aren’t they?” a deckhand remarked.

“Adorable,” Hill said.

Otters, elusive and skittish, are difficult to study. Much of what is learned about otters comes from necropsies after they are dead.

Sanders of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the Otter Project has become valuable in helping plug holes in data collected along the shore.

“We don’t have enough eyes and ears out there,” Sanders said. “The more out there, the better.”