Numbers of Sea Otters

Elaine Abraham of Yakutat noted, "We are so overpopulated with sea otters, they've turned cannibalistic. A week ago - you have to visualize the coast of Yakutat, we don't have a lot of inland. A week or two ago some men were out into the islands - sea urchins, gumboots, clams are almost gone - they counted 400 sea otter Knight Island - they completely surrounded the island. It is where we get our seaweed, early in the spring - Tlingit celery and other foods from there. Right near the village, there are huge sea otters."

Harold Martin of Juneau noted, "There is very visibly an over-population of sea otter in Southeast Alaska. Normally, the sea otter is an outer coast animal. That is where we would like to see them stay. Because of the large population, the sea otter are infiltrating into the inside waters. The threat of this trend is that sea otter feed on the same things that we consider subsistence foods. These animals weigh anywhere from 60 to 120 pounds and must consume 25% of their weight every day to sustain themselves. They feed on clams, crab, octopus, sea urchins, abalone. They are beginning to get into gumboots and for me that is a cause for war. Leave my gumboots alone! There is concern from Native dungeness crab fishermen that in 3 to 4 years there will not be any crab in the bays for them to harvest. Cordova is a good example of what sea otter can do to a bay. The whole bay is like an under water desert. I have brought this concern up to the US Fish & Wildlife Service for years. At our last meeting I was finally told that it is not up to the USFWS to control the population of sea otter. Under the marine mammal protection act, Natives are exempt and only Natives can harvest sea otter."

Norm Kohler of Sitka noted, "I can start with sea otters. There are some beaches near here that have been pretty much wiped clean of any kind of shellfish. We have fears that they are going to keep going along the coast and wipe everything out. I realize we have to co-exist with these sea otters, but at what price? We're losing good populations of shellfish (clams, gumboot, etc.) to these otters. Why is this happening? I have a strong feeling that part of the food chain has changed so they are targeting other things."