Oceanography | Vol.28, No.2
Oceanography | Vol.28, No.2
BY C H E RY L LY N DY BA S
The Story Behind the Story
A young warrior named Natsilane was
destined to become chief of his tribe, folk-
tales of the Tlingit and Haida peoples of
Southeast Alaska say. Natsilane’s broth-
ers were jealous of his stature, however,
and plotted to depose him.
The brothers took Natsilane out to sea,
ostensibly to fish, then threw him over-
board and rowed away.
But the chief-to-be wasn’t alone in the
deep blue sea.
He was rescued by a sea otter who car-
ried him to an island. The otter took care
of the boy, showing him the best hunting
and fishing grounds.
Eventually, though, the sea otter had to
return to its life in the water. It offered a
last gift to Natsilane, a pouch of seeds,
telling him to sow them across the island.
Natsilane complied, and the seeds grew
into tall trees. He then used wood from
the trees to build a boat, returned to his
village, and became chief.
To this day, according to legend, the lives
of humans and sea otters are intertwined.
OUT OF BALANCE:
OTTERS AND PEOPLE
Intertwined, but not in balance, says
Dennis Nickerson, environmental plan-
ner for the Organized Village of Kasaan,
a federally recognized Alaska tribal gov-
ernment established in 1938. The
village perches on the
east side of Prince of
Wales Island, some
50 km northwest
of Ketchikan.
Like the gold rush, Nickerson says,
we’ve gone from boom to bust to boom in
our relationship with sea otters. Is the next
bust—in the commercially valuable shell-
fish otters eat—on the horizon?
THE BOOM: SEA OTTERS BEFORE US
Sea otters are marine mammals native to
the North Pacific Ocean. The otters were
once abundant from Hokkaido, Japan,
through the Kuril Islands, the Kamchatka
Peninsula, Commander Islands, Aleutian
Islands, peninsular and coastal Alaska,
and south to Baja California.
Sea otters live just off the coast, where
they dive to the bottom to forage for
invertebrates like sea urchins. The otters
control populations of urchins that would
otherwise mow down kelp forests and
take out entire ecosystems.
But sea otters’ diets include species like
clams and crabs that are also top choices
on human menus, leading to conflicts
between otters and fishers.
To track the number of sea otters and
their effects on fisheries, biologists
Ginny Eckert of
the University of
Alaska
Fairbanks (UAF), Verena Gill of the
US Department of the Interior, and other
scientists are working together on the
Alaska Sea Grant-supported Southeast
Alaska Sea Otter Project.
Public perceptions of sea otters have
changed dramatically over time, write
Gill and co-authors in a chapter in the
2015 book Sea Otter Conservation. “Like
other top predators such as wolves,
sea otters inspire extremes of emotion,
and sentiment toward them tends to
coalesce into camps.”
THE BUST:
FORTUNE-SEEKERS FROM SIBERIA
In the early 1700s, the global sea otter
population was estimated at 150,000 to
300,000 otters, according to Eckert. “Until
the mid-1700s,” she says, “sea otters were
common throughout their range.”
Then came the Russian explorers who
would turn fur traders.
Unlike most marine mammals, sea otters
stay warm not with blubber but with thick
coats of fur—blessings and, at times,
curses. To Russian explorers, otter fur was
a siren call.
“Fortune-seekers from Siberia reaped
a harvest of riches more fabulous than
the Spanish conquistadors,” wrote Harold
McCracken in his 1957 book Hunters of the
Stormy Sea, an account of early sea otter
hunting expeditions. “The sea otter’s was
the most valuable fur on earth. As a result,
these golden fleeces of the stormy north-
ern seas were virtually exterminated.”
Extensive
harvest
over
the
next
150 years resulted in near-extirpation
of the species. By the time sea otters
were given protection under the North
Pacific Fur Seal Treaty of 1911, fewer than
2,000 otters remained in 13 colonies.
Ripple Marks
COASTAL GOLD RUSH:
SOUTHEAST ALASKA’S SEA OTTERS SWING FROM BOOM TO BUST TO BOOM