- There we go.
(upbeat music)
- When you're taking care of a sea otter pup,
there really is nothing cuter.
They kind of nestle into you
and when you're drying off their coat,
after they get out of the water,
you have to make sure they get real dry
so they can stay warm.
Lincoln was very young when he got here,
he was very small still, nursing from a bottle.
and we were with him 24 hours a day.
(gentle music)
- Without human caregivers taking care of this pup,
this pup would not survive.
And so, you develop a very strong bond with them.
from the first day you take care of them.
We have three sea otters at the Oregon Zoo.
Our oldest is Juno.
Our second oldest is Lincoln, he's our only male.
And then we have Sushi, she's just over a year
and I would call her spicy.
I think a lot of people connect with sea otters
because they are so fun to watch.
They're very active,
they're playful with one another,
they're very unique marine mammals
and they play a really important role
in the marine ecosystem.
- Kelp and sea otters go together.
Otters are very active feeders.
They need to eat a lot of food,
nearly 25% of their weight every day
and so they can eat a lot of urchins.
By keeping the urchin population low,
it keeps the kelp populations healthy.
- They kind of hold the whole food chain in order.
So when the sea otters disappear
and the sea urchins mow down all the kelp forest,
you get what's considered a wasteland.
- Sea otters were common along the Oregon Coast at one time.
and now they are completely gone.
(gentle music)
Sea otters were a prized animal in the fur trade
and thus, they were wiped out.
We assume that with loss of sea otters,
that there was an increase in sea urchins.
The sea urchins in recent times
have been decimating kelp forests
all the way from Northern California into Southern Oregon.
But there's an effort underway to bring sea otters back
to the Oregon Coast.
(gentle music)
- Bringing back sea otters to the Oregon Coast
would be an amazing project,
but there are a lot of stakeholders involved,
the fishing industry,
there's the native communities, governments.
There's a lot of science that needs to take place first.
So we know if we're going to do this,
how do we do it appropriately and correctly?
- We need to respect the biology of the sea otters.
And we know that they need to have places
where there is kelp.
There was a release in the early 1970s
and some of the sea otters instantly left the area.
They just swam off, never to be seen again.
One of the primary things that we still don't know about
sea otter habitat is where kelp forests currently are
along the Oregon Coast.
(gentle music)
The kelp mapping project that The Nature Conservancy
is working on, is going to entail, not only mapping
where kelp forests currently exist,
but we also want to identify where there is a potential
for kelp forests to grow as they restore themselves.
(gentle music)
The kelp mapping effort is also going to be listing
juvenile fish species that are found
and associated with these kelp forests.
Because kelp forests provide these sorts of
important habitats and will ultimately lead
to stronger fish populations in the future.
I think it's easy to underestimate the importance
of sea otters.
We see them as these very curious, fun-loving animals,
but we tend to forget that they play this incredibly
important role that actually protects
these critical habitats under the sea.
(upbeat music)
- At the Oregon Zoo, we do support re-introducing sea otters
to the Oregon Coast.
Understanding that it needs to be a collaborative effort
based in science.
And that's why the kelp mapping project is really important.
Even today, when you visit the Oregon Coast,
you can see evidence of the effects that otters
had in the area.
We've got Otter Rock, Otter Point, Otter Crest.
I hope that people continue to go out and learn
how important of a role they played once
in the Oregon marine ecosystem.
It's remembering that they were here at one time
and that they did serve an important purpose.
(upbeat music)
(sea otter squeaks)