Sea Otter Inlet

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

Once there lived a colony of sea otters in an ocean inlet. They spent
their time diving into the lush kelp forests, eating sea urchins, and
sleeping on their backs wrapped in kelp leaves. Then one day human
hunters came, and mercilessly killed the otters for their soft, warm
fur. When the last otter was killed, the humans sailed away.

Without the sea otters, the inlet’s ecology changed. First, the sea
urchins multiplied very quickly, taking over the sea bottom. They ate
the kelp at its roots, causing the forests to die. Then the animals that
lived in the kelp died and the inlet became desolate—until a few sea
otters who had avoided the hunters returned. Their eating of the sea
urchins gradually restored the inlet to normal.

This is Celia Godkin’s third nature book and she has obviously found
her element. Godkin’s elegant prose and lovely pictures tell her story
as a lyrical yet scientific equation. Moreover, her understated style
actually gives the book’s ecological message more impact. Highly
recommended.