Sea otters still not out of the woods yet

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

From Greenspace, The Times’ new blog on environmental issues, comes this report on sea otters:

California’s beloved sea otters, the furry, button-nosed creatures that frolic off the state’s Central Coast, are not recovering as fast as hoped. Beset by disease and shot by angry fishermen, these voracious shellfish eaters have been holding steady. That’s the upshot of the latest census conducted in May by the U.S. Geological Survey and the California Department of Fish and Game.

Although the otter population hasn’t rebounded, there’s a bright side to the low numbers, scientists point out. In a time when it’s all the rage to declare a species recovered and remove federal protections under the Endangered Species Act, the otter has remained stubbornly below the threshold required to begin ‘delisting.’ That means that the federal government will continue to unleash scientists to focus on a recovery plan for the Southern sea otter that was nearly hunted to extinction nearly a century ago.

The chart above, assembled by the U.S. Geological Survey, tells the story.

-- Kenneth R. Weiss

[For more news on endangered species, air quality, pollution and other issues, check out Greenspace, Environmental News from California and Beyond.]