recovery & rehabilitation

Southern sea otters were plentiful throughout coastal regions until their population began to plummet as their fur gained value and oil spills began to show adverse effects on their health. Incidental deaths as a result of harassment, shooting, or fishnet entanglements are all also significant contributors to southern sea otters' decreasing populations.

Commercial hunting of southern sea otters began in the 1700s and caused the population to plummet well into the early 1900s. In 1911, hunting them became illegal through the signing of an international treaty between the U.S., Britain, Japan, and Russia. At that point, there were only a few thousand sea otters along the Pacific coast with an estimated 50 otters inhabiting the California coast. 

In 1972, the Marine Mammal Protection Act was passed which allowed California's sea otters to grow back to around 1,000. That's a drastic difference! Following this call to action, southern sea otters were listed as a threatened species under the Environmental Species Act in 1977. A recovery plan was written and adopted to help rehabilitate southern sea otters in 1982 and was revised in 2003. These furry friends will have a shot at being delisted as a threatened species once their populations grow back to over 3,090 sea otters. Yet, this still  leaves an unexpected future for southern sea otters as their numbers are still struggling to grow as expected. This has prevented the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service from being able to accurately predict when this recovery plan will end.