The Nature of Sea Otters: A Story of Survival

Trevor S. Raymond is a teacher and librarian with the Peel Board of Education and editor of Canadian Holmes.

What the beaver was to much of Canada, the sea otter was to the Pacific,
luring explorers and traders into uncharted territories in search of its
pelt, the densest fur in the world. In the process, this extraordinary
animal, not to be confused with the familiar river otter, was driven to
the brink of extinction. This book briefly recounts the role of the sea
otter in Pacific history, and tells of its survival and reappearance in
some of the areas where it once thrived. It is a story “of a victory
over human greed and incredible odds,” told by a much-published marine
biologist on the staff of the Vancouver Aquarium.

The book’s six chapters summarize for the general reader information
about sea otter behavior, physiology, and biology, most of it learned
only in the past two decades; tell the sad story of the 18th- and
19th-century plundering that nearly destroyed the creature; and recount
the efforts made in recent years to re-establish colonies of sea otters
in their historical habitats. Discouraging failures to start new
colonies in the 1950s led to more knowledge of the sea otter’s life,
but there is still much to learn. Why attempts to re-establish the sea
otter off the Oregon coast have met with repeated failure is a puzzle,
as is the curious mystery of why sharks don’t seem to eat these
animals.

The reader also learns of the environmental horrors that threaten the
creature today: the Exxon Valdez disaster, which led to the spending of
more than $18 million on sea otter rescue alone; and “dive fishing,”
which destroys the sea bottom, and of which Paine writes, “a similar
raping of the land would never be tolerated.” What lingers most in the
reader’s mind, however, are the breathtaking photos by former
biologist Jeff Foott.