Sea otter populations doing well, benefiting ecosytem

An increase in the sea otter population means some positive changes in the environment. Before being hunted and nearly extinct, researchers said sea otters used to be abundant in sloughs across California. And now, they’re making their way back to their old homes.

“And so it’s a habitat that they hadn’t used in years and have taken to it quite well,” said Dave Feliz, environmental scientist with the Elkhorn Slough.

According to scientists, the Elkhorn Slough is a sheltered and healthy environment for sea otters to thrive.

“It makes life easy for an otter, this is what they were born for, this is what they’ve developed for,” said Rob Eby, a volunteer expert on otters at the Elkhorn Slough.

According to scientists, sea otters are actually some pretty feisty predators. But they are really important for the food chain and ecosystem of the Monterey Bay. In the Elkhorn Slough, Feliz and Eby explained that as predators sea otters feed on organisms that hurt eelgrass. So more sea otters means more eelgrass and that’s beneficial for the Elkhorn Slough.

“It enables all the small fish to have a nursery to grow in, it filters out nutrients that would be going out otherwise, and it just leads to a healthy ecosystem,” said Eby.

But it’s not just the Elkhorn Slough benefiting from the rise of sea otters, the entire Monterey Bay is cashing in.

“For the tourism, people come to Monterey just to see the sea otters. Kayaks get rented out here, during the summertime we have hundreds of kayakers, there’s different tour boats that take people up and down,” said Eby.

“Yeah they’re improving everything and they’re pointing out to us that our economy is dependent on our environment. So when we help the environment, we’re helping ourselves,” said Feliz.

Right now, according to the Elkhorn Slough there’s more than 100 sea otters present in the slough, making it a popular place to see them. Elsewhere on the Central Coast, the sea otter population is over 3,000.