welcome to k passionate
i'm your host kp a marine biologist
up here in the pacific northwest which was once part of the historic range of sea otters
now if you've watched any of our previous deeper dives you'll probably
know that sea otters are a member of the mustelidae family or the weasel family
but what you might not know is that they are so different from their other weasel cousins
that as late as 1982 scientists actually thought they were more closely related to seals
so today we're diving into the history of sea otters to find out how they became
so unique so important and so dang cute do me a favor first though hit that like button to help
boost this video and youtube's algorithm and subscribe if you want to see more of this content
the stellads are an incredibly diverse family of mostly terrestrial animals like stoats
badgers and even the domesticated ferret
however there are 13 aquatic weasels including the eurasian otter the north american river otter
the asian small clawed otter and even the hairy nose daughter but of course also the sea otter
but i mentioned in the intro that sea otters are very unique among their weasel cousins for one
they are the only weasel who doesn't have active scent glands they also don't use dens or
burrows and they're also the only weasel they can live their entire life in the water
in fact recent genetic analysis and fossil evidence indicates that sea otters diverged
from their closest extant cousins about 5 million years ago and became isolated
in the north pacific about 2 million years ago amazing editing skills of a timeline
but the first sea otter was not the clam eating otter that we know and love of today
it was in fact anhydra macrodonta or the large toothed sea otter as the name suggests
this otter had large robust teeth significantly more so than the modern sea otter if you want
to know more about sea otter teeth click on one of my favorite deeper dives in the link right up here
and like most pleistocene megafauna the large toothed sea otter became extinct in the last
ice age and that was around 25 000 years ago giving rise to the modern sea otter
who first evolved in the waters around russia and japan but eventually moved all around the
pacific rim even down to the baja peninsula now this is about the same time that the indigenous
peoples of north america were estimated to have crossed the land bridge from asia to alaska
and sea otters played a very important role for the maritime indigenous peoples
like the haida of haiduguai or the elutes of the aleutian islands
many of these cultures have strong animist traditions that even consider sea otters to be
kin to humans many anthropologists attribute this to the sea otter's seemingly human-like behaviors
oh are you waving that's nice the ability to use tools
even clap
maybe to hold hands while they're sleeping and sometimes even the very strong bonds
formed between mothers and pups unfortunately this is where the explorers come in namely the
zoologist george stella the guy famous for naming animals such as the stellar sea lion
stellar sea eagle stellars blue jay you get the idea we're pretty lucky they are not called the
stellar seal and that's probably only because their aquatic nature and their very thick
fur coat led him to believe they were actually a species of fever quick aside hopefully you
already know that sea otters are not related to beavers beavers are rodents indicated by those two
prominent front teeth whereas sea otters have large conical canines like other carnivores
back to georgie who discovered sea otters back in 1741 when he was stranded in the bering strait
now i think most of you know where this story is headed and this next part gets a little sad
and dark but i promise you there's a happy ending
most of his crewmates died in that shipwreck but the survivors
spent the winter hunting sea otters they returned to russia with over a thousand pelts and were able
to sell them at exorbitant prices they were so profitable the british explorer james cook
referred to them as soft gold this set off the great hunt also known as the fur trade
the large-scale maritime fur trade lasted over 170
years and it's estimated that over 1 million sea otters were killed
sea otters were hunted so extensively that the commercial trade of their pelts quickly became
unviable sea otter pelts became so rare that by 1903 a single pelt was selling for about a
thousand pounds on the london market adjusted for inflation that's 125 000 pounds for a single pelt
and that's because at this time there were so few sea otters remaining
that scientists estimated they were destined for extinction
and this had unexpected and devastating impacts for the environment because sea
otters keep in check populations of purple sea urchins that when left to their own devices
mow down entire kelp forests leaving urchin barrens
and kelp forests are vital to the health and stability of our oceans in fact kelp
forests support more biodiversity and sequester more carbon than a similar sized redwood grove
and sea otters were not the only casualty the people's indigenous to the pacific northwest
suffered a horrific genocide russian hunters enslaved and tortured the elutes of the
aleutian islands and forced them to hunt sea otters by russia's own estimate 18 000 elutes
were killed in that time frame bringing the population from 20 000 down to just 2 000.
full disclosure here i am a marine biologist and not an anthropologist and while i am aware
of some of the horrors inflicted on indigenous people i am not an expert by any means but i am
trying to learn and i think that you should too so if you head down to the descriptions
there are links to sources and citations for you to learn more about this issue
thankfully in 1911 russia japan canada and the u.s signed the treaty for the protection of
fursuits this treaty succeeded by the marine mammal protection act
outlawed the harassment or hunting of animals like sea lions seals sea otters
fur seals and really any marine mammal it also provided an exemption
to the people like the eluse who hunt for non-commercial purposes like shelter or food
with these new protections in place sea otters began to thrive they reclaimed
almost two-thirds of their historic habitat and reintroduction programs to places like california
or even here in bc were widely successful today there are even potential plans to reintroduce sea
otters off the coast of northern california and even oregon and when the sea otters returned so
did the kelp forests who provide shelter and homes to over 1 000 different animal species
it is widely considered one of the greatest conservation efforts of all time it was
unfortunately partially derailed in 1989 by the exxon valdez oil spill
even though rescue efforts managed to save 200 of the 350 rescued oiled sea otters over
1 000 oiled otter carcasses were found off the alaskan coast and it's safe to assume that the
actual number of otter deaths was in fact much higher we've covered oil spills like
the exxon valdez in a previous deeper dive and while it is one of our heavier episodes i also
believe it's one of our more important and you can find that link right up here
but the history of sea otters would of course not be complete without bringing up rescued and
rehabilitated animals like joey who was found off the coast of vancouver island in 2020.
if you're unfamiliar with joey don't worry i've set it up so that the video recommended to you
at the end of this feed will be joey's rescue and rehab story but for now just know that he
has engaged thousands of people across the globe and inspired conservation efforts for his species
countless sea otters are rescued every year by
amazing facilities like the alaska sea life center or monterey bay aquarium
some of these rescues especially at monterey bay aquarium are even reintroduced back into
their wild populations and those that are not able to be released like the eight otters that
i work with become important ambassadors for their species at zoos and aquariums
to help raise awareness about this amazing species and what we can do to help them out
that's what we're trying to do with this channel so if you want to help
boost that and the algorithm you can hit that like even better drop a comment down
below and head down to the descriptions for ways that you can help support the channel
and i'll see you next time on a deeper dive
that's what's bigger
you