Overdue plan ought to help save otters

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- A sea otter recovery plan formally released Thursday was praised by environmental groups as long overdue after 16 years of delays and false starts. It's been 21 years since the previous such plan was presented.

The latest version blames human activities for the decline in the California sea otter population and recommends reducing oil spills, ocean pollutants and entanglements with boat motors and fishing gear.

It also calls for more research to determine why otters haven't recovered after being named a threatened species in 1977. And it sets higher thresholds for when the southern sea otter population could be considered safe enough to be removed from federal Endangered Species Act protection.

Released late Wednesday without ceremony by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the plan was formally presented Thursday.

The Otter Project, Defenders of Wildlife, the Sea Otter Defense Initiative and The Humane Society of the United States all called the plan long overdue but praised it for including recommendations they'd been making for years.

"At long last we have a blueprint for the recovery of otters," said Defenders of Wildlife's Jim Curland.

He said the plan contains what he called "a more realistic" population threshold for when the otter population could be considered to be recovered: 3,090 animals, up from 2,650 set under the last plan.

The new plan says the otter population would have to reach 8,400 animals before the species would no longer be listed as depleted under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Otters were hunted to near extinction for their luxuriously soft pelts by the early 20th century but reached a recent population high of 2,377 in 1995. Since then, however, the population has dropped to about 2,150 animals.

The decline has been a mystery to scientists struggling to save the species from extinction.

Scientists have not determined why seemingly healthy adult otters in their prime reproductive years are dying, though The Otter Project's Steve Shimek blamed chemicals found in high amounts in coastal waters. The pollutants have proven to affect the immune system, Shimek said, and may make the otters more susceptible to diseases and parasites.

The report also recommends ending a "no otter zone" south of Point Conception along central California's Gaviota Coast. The zone was established in 1987 to protect the otters from competition with fishermen, but the report says the effort has proven "costly and ineffective."

It says the wider range would help protect the population in the event of a major oil spill.

The service also is considering what to do with the few remaining otters transplanted to San Nicholas Island in the late 1980s to preserve the species in the event of a catastrophic oil spill.

Public hearings on that isolated population's future are planned for this summer.

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