Sea Otters: Climate Profile & Conservation Impacts

As of today, sea otters are one of the most peculiar species to be found. Sea otters live their entire life in the water as carnivores, mainly eating fish, mussels, clams, sea urchins, and crabs. If sea otters were not there then, sea urchins would overpopulate the sea bottom, devouring the kelp forests that provide cover and food for many other marine animals. Sea otters also contribute to lower levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, a common greenhouse gas, by maintaining healthy kelp forests because kelp captures and accumulates carbon. This is why sea otters are so important for survival. Furthermore, sea otters are grazers and typically feed on invertebrates with hard shells like sea urchins. This aids other species because sea otters keep the population of kelp-grazing sea urchins at a low population. In detail, bald eagles, orcas, and sharks prey on sea otters. In addition, this marine animal has many endearing characteristics, such as enclosing themselves in kelp or sleeping with their hands together to avoid drifting away. Sea Otters are vital to ocean life, yet their populations are diminishing. Even before contact, the indigenous peoples of Canada hunted sea otters for the fur trade. Sea otters were then driven to extinction by the maritime fur trade that began after 1741. Despite escaping the fur trade in some cases, sea otters are still at risk today from overfishing, entanglement in fishing gear, food scarcity, and oil spills. Due to increasing bacterial and contaminant pollution levels in coastal waters, sea otters get infected with a variety of infectious illnesses. The diet of sea otters contributes to their increased vulnerability to pollution. Sea otters, which have extremely high energy requirements, must devour around 25% of their body weight in prey each day to survive. Predation by white sharks and orcas also contributes to the situation of sea otters today.