SEA OTTERS Life and Death

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SEA OTTERSLife and Death
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Major Objectives

• Sea otter evolution
• Relationship between sea otter and man
• Sea otters role as a keystone predator
• Sea otters and kelp forests
• Sea otter futures

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Evolution of todays sea otter

• 2 million years agoEnhydra lutris

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Humans like sea otters
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In the beginning
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A simple and complex life

• Food, shelter, breed, avoid being eaten

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Sea otters eat a lot of meat
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Work of a keystone predator

• 
  

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Keystone predator in action
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Otters love urchins

• There are kelp forests because there are otters

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Kelp forest stability

• Human hunting changes the kelp forest structure

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The first otter kill

• 8-9000 ya, otters become an easy target

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Russians get lost in Alaska

• Russians discover Alaskan wildlife in 1741

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Sea cow is easy meat

• Last few thousand stellers sea cows on the
  planet have a hard time of it

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Sea otter genocide

• Otters previously only hunted for warmth and food

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The massacre continues

• Demand for otter fur grows throughout the world

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The process of skinning

• The fleshy pieces still attached to the fur are
  scraped off delicately so as not to cut into the
  fur

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What the otters used fur for

• Otters can spend 50 of daylight hours cleaning
  their fur

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A daily life of peril
Otters can die from the cold
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The last of the otters

• 150 years after excessive hunting, people realize
  a mistake has been made

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Otters repopulate the world

• Miraculously, otter population has not been too
  far reduced for regrowth

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Otter death still occurs

• Aleutians demand cultural hunting rights back

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Ignorant violence

• Californians deliberately murder protected sea
  otters

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Otters are loved

• Despite rare deaths, otters now cherished in many
  parts of the world

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A new threat emerges

• In 1991, first killer whale attack on Alaskan
  otter is witnessed

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Otter killer

• 3 killer whales, 3-6 otters a day, ten years

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Whale killer

• The reasons why

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Red for murder
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Solutions to the problem

• No solution except the impossible

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Cetacean populations
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A great fall

• Whales, seals, sea lions, sea otters

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The threat of extinction

• Can the sea otter still go extinct?

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A sign of things to come

• Ripple effects

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Rise and fall

• The sea otters life history has been shaped by
  human greed

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Sea otter today

• A different relationship currently exists