U.S. Halts Program to Shift Otters to Island : Wildlife: Abandoning the San Nicholas colony will not help shellfish divers. They say the protected species is wiping out their catches.

In a major break with a plan to create a spinoff colony of threatened California sea otters at San Nicolas Island, federal wildlife officials have stopped moving animals to the island and may capture and remove those already there.

Only 14 adults remain of the 139 animals that were moved to the island 60 miles off the Ventura County coast during the four-year program, according to a revised otter recovery plan issued this month.

“The translocated colony is precariously small, and its future prospects are uncertain,” says the report issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Federal biologists wanted to establish a colony at the remote island to preserve the species if a massive oil spill wiped out the main herd of about 2,000 animals that roam the Central California coast.

But officials decided to halt the transfers after many of the animals left San Nicolas Island and two animals that were surgically implanted with radios died.

After workshops this week in Santa Monica and Santa Rosa and a review period that ends Oct. 1, the Fish and Wildlife Service will decide whether to remove the otters that remain.

Abandoning the controversial program, however, will not change the protected status of the threatened species, nor solve problems for California shellfish divers. Fishermen have protested since the transfers began in 1987 that valuable abalone, sea urchin and other fisheries in the Channel Islands are being lost to the voracious otters.

“You have wildlife competing for the same resource as people,” said Marvin L. Plenert, western regional director of the Fish and Wildlife Service. “The alternative, if we don’t protect them, is extinction. And I don’t think anybody wants that.”

Plenert will rule on the program’s fate by the first of the year. He will base his decision in large part on recommendations from the Sea Otter Recovery Team, a group of scientists affiliated with universities and private institutes nationwide who advise the Fish and Wildlife Service on how to ensure the survival of the California sea otter.

If Plenert declares the program a failure, he is obligated under federal law and the terms of an agreement with the state Department of Fish and Game to have the otters removed from San Nicolas Island.

But capturing animals that have strayed to neighboring islands over the past four years has proven nearly impossible because of rough seas and the otters’ intelligence, officials said.

Some say the only effective means of rounding them up may be to kill them, which wildlife officials say is not an option. The revised plan suggests changing the law to allow the otters to remain at the island even if the transfer program is officially discontinued.

But fishermen vehemently disagree with the plan’s conclusion that it may be best to leave the sea otters at San Nicolas.

“They are going to have to approach the issue of the lethal taking of these animals,” said Steve Rebuck, an abalone diver and member of Save Our Shellfish, a fishermen’s group based in San Luis Obispo. “They have just not been successful in capturing them.”

The Department of Fish and Game, however, contends that options are available.

The federal biologists could catch the animals alive if they put enough time into training divers, assigned enough people to the effort and allocated the resources to buy the right equipment, said Fred Wendell, a department biologist and the lead scientist for the state’s sea otter project.

“They never committed adequate manpower or equipment,” Wendell said. “The bottom line is, it can be done.”

In addition to calling into question the San Nicolas Island program, the Sea Otter Recovery Team’s revised plan for the first time sets a population level at which the California sea otter could be considered out of danger of extinction.

The document states that the population must more than double in size--to 5,400 otters--before survival of the species could be guaranteed, a process that could take 22 years based on the present 5% growth rate.

In addition, the revised plan says, the range of the main sea otter herd must be allowed to expand north to the Oregon border and south to Point Conception to become a viable population. The herd’s range now includes 220 miles of coastal waters from Santa Cruz to Pismo Beach.

Otters should also be allowed to expand their range south of Point Conception to the Mexican border in the long run, according to the document. Under the federal law that allowed the transfer of animals to San Nicolas Island, the Fish and Wildlife Service is obligated to keep otters out of waters south of Point Conception, about 40 miles west of Santa Barbara.

But the state, which has been a reluctant participant in the plan from the onset, disputes the federal government’s estimates of the population and range needed to sustain the species.

The range and the population are now sufficient, Wendell said.

“The No. 1 priority has to be the continued existence of the sea otters in the state of California,” he said. “But once that is secured, then consideration should be given to other uses of the resources.”

Abalone diver Rebuck said that doubling the sea otter population in the state and allowing the shellfish-eating mammals to roam throughout Southern California waters would cause the collapse of the California shellfishing industry.

“It would take every productive area in the state to sustain that population,” he said.

Tom Crager, a Ventura commercial sea urchin diver, said the otters have enough room in their present range.

“Why not develop methods of keeping the otters within their range and let us coexist with them?” he asked. “That’s more than fair.”

Crager said federal officials should stick to their promise and use whatever means necessary to round up the animals at San Nicolas Island if the project is abandoned.

“They promised they would remove them from the island if they abandoned the project,” he said.

Rebuck estimated that the 14 remaining animals eat more than $5,000 worth of shellfish a day.

Plenert said he’ll consider all opinions when he makes his decision.

“Our goal is to get them off the endangered species list,” he said.

FYI

Public workshops are scheduled on the revised sea otter recovery plan from 1 to 4 p.m. and 6 to 9 p.m. Tuesday at the Guest Quarters Suite Hotel, 1707 4th St., Santa Monica, and from 1 to 4 p.m. and 6 to 9 p.m. Thursday at the Red Lion Inn Sonoma County, 1 Red Lion Drive, Rohnert Park.