Mark Odom Hatfield, Part 1: Oregon Forest Destroyer

This is the first of two Public Lands Blog posts on the most consequential Oregonian yet to serve in the United States Senate. In Part 1, we look at his role in enabling the destruction of Oregon forests. In Part 2, we will examine his complicated legacy.

 Top Line: While Oregon’s Mark Hatfield was a great US senator, it was not because of his record on the conservation of nature.

Figure 1. Senator Mark Odom Hatfield (R-OR) in 1981. Source: US Senate.

Recently, the Oregon Historical Society (OHS) had one of their launch parties in Pendleton for a new traveling exhibit: “The Call of Public Service: The Life and Legacy of Mark O. Hatfield.” On the wall, in big 3D letters, was a list of things OHS says Hatfield most cared about:

1. Wilderness Protection

2. World Peace

3. Infrastructure

4. Health Care

5. Equal Rights

6. Education

Figure 2. One of several kiosks in the Oregon Historical Society’s traveling exhibit on Senator Mark O. Hatfield. Source: Oregon Historical Society.

When I read this, I was stunned. More than once I had characterized Mark Hatfield as a pacifist timber beast when explaining his ability to survive and prosper politically in Oregon. (Although a Republican, he was downright liberal on issues such as world peace, health care, equal rights, and education, which resulted in a lot of Democrats repeatedly voting for him.)

Peace, Yes. Wilderness Protection, Not So Much.

Looking at that list on the wall told me that a historian, perhaps more than one, believes that the thing Mark Hatfield cared most about was wilderness protection. Or perhaps it’s merely a listing of six causes, with no ranking of importance—but if that were the case, alphabetical order would be the usual way to signal such, or even random ordering. However, this list would be in reverse alphabetical order if wilderness protection and world peace were reversed. No, wilderness protection was clearly meant to be first and most important.

I’m pretty sure Hatfield cared more about world peace than wilderness protection. He talked about and did more about peace. He deeply opposed the Vietnam War at a time when most Oregonians supported it. He proposed a cabinet-level Department of Peace to offset the Department of Defense (which combined the Department of War and the Department of the Navy). For the relative and absolute dearth of presence of the military-industrial complex in Oregon today, we can thank Hatfield. I recall getting a mass mailing from Hatfield way before Gulf War I where he warned of “our sons fighting and dying in the sands of Arabia” for oil.

The OHS exhibit features Hatfield’s efforts to establish wilderness, wild and scenic rivers, and the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. It’s true that for most of the area protected today in Oregon as wilderness, Hatfield was instrumental. For most of the streams protected today in Oregon as wild and scenic rivers, Hatfield was instrumental. The Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area would not be, if not for Hatfield.

What OHS says is true—as far as it goes.

However, millions of acres of Oregon’s wild forests could have been protected as wilderness but were not, thanks to Hatfield. (You can read my very opinionated but nonetheless factual history of Oregon’s wilderness wars, in which Hatfield played an outsized role for so long, in a chapter of my book Oregon Wild: Endangered Forest Wilderness.)

However, several dammed streams in Oregon—the Upper Rogue, dammed by Lost Creek Dam; the Applegate River, dammed by the Applegate Dam; the Elk Creek tributary to the Upper Rogue, dammed at one time by the Elk Creek Dam; the Willow Creek tributary to the Columbia River; and more—were damned by Hatfield. (The Elk Creek Dam no longer damns Elk Creek, which is now a component of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System.)

Figure 3. The first kayaker to pass through the breached Elk Creek Dam in 2009. Hatfield used raw political power to force the Army Corps of Engineers to build a dam that even the agency didn’t want to build. Source: WaterWatch (Bill Cross).

However, there is no Cascade Volcanic National Park in the Oregon Cascades, because of Mark Hatfield.

However, no single person did more to enable the liquidation of most of Oregon’s old-growth forests than Senator Mark O. Hatfield. At the logging’s peak, more than three square miles of old-growth forest on Oregon federal public lands were being clear-cut each week. From his perch on, and often as chair of, the Senate Committee on Appropriations, Hatfield made sure the money was there for the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management to lay out the clear-cuts and build the roads in old-growth forests. Multiple times, including during his last years in office, Hatfield attached riders (a rider is a provision of law attached to must-pass legislation that would not receive a majority vote on its own) that barred the courthouse door to citizens seeking to enforce federal laws to protect ancient forests.

The Definitive Book on Hatfield (So Far)

Figure 4. The definitive book on Hatfield by Richard W. Etulain, a noted western historian who is a self-admitted Hatfield fanboy. Source: University of Oklahoma Press.

As a matter of professional interest (know one’s opponent), I have read all the books written by Hatfield, and when Mark O. Hatfield: Oregon Statesman by noted western author Richard W. Etulain came out last year I was interested to read one about Hatfield. I found it very informative. The meat of Etulain’s book ends in 1967 as Hatfield moves from the job of governor of Oregon to that of US senator from Oregon, as its coverage of Hatfield’s Senate career is superficial. As the author has noted, the Hatfield papers at Willamette University are sealed until July 2022 (Hatfield’s one hundredth birthday), so Etulain concentrated on the gubernatorial years, where the record is more complete. Etulain has said that writing about Hatfield’s Senate years would take at least five years of research and writing, something he says, at eighty-three, he cannot commit to.

Hatfield is the first governor I can remember. When my interactions with the man started in 1979 as I was advocating for wilderness, he had been a senator for more than a decade. As I read the book, I kept feeling that when writing about issues facing Hatfield as governor (1959 to 1967), Etulain was taking digs at the likes of me for existing at all during Hatfield as senator (1967 to 1997). Tellingly, when writing about Hatfield’s gubernatorial years, Etulain keeps referring to “environmentalists,” a term that didn’t come into general use until around the first Earth Day in 1970. Here are a few excerpts that indicate the author’s disdain for anything close to an “environmentalist.”

[Hatfield] viewed Dallas as a wholesome and holistic community, its life orchestrated primarily by the timber industry with tight links to lumbering and the daily routines of the saw mill. . . . This optimistic view of the timber industry and lumbering generally casts light on Hatfield’s later political support for the industry, which his environmentally motivated critics thought far too strong . . .

Logging and lumbering firms wanted to cut more trees to capitalize on Oregon’s timber riches. Hatfield began to work on that production-conservation issue as a middle-of-the-roader, a position that upset born-again environmentalists, especially Democratic environmentalists, in Hatfield’s later senator years . . . 

President Theodore Roosevelt, thoroughly influenced by his forester friend Gifford Pinchot, stood for “wise use” of natural resources. Assertive conservationist John Muir spoke passionately for “wilderness” advocates: the setting aside of forests, lands, deserts, and natural wonders as wilderness areas to be appreciated but not “used.” Hatfield was drawn to the wise-use philosophy, a position later enthusiastic environmentalists greatly disliked. [emphasis added]

Etulain has said that he found Hatfield to be “the ideal politician,” and he couldn’t find any major faults with the senator. I look forward to a more encompassing and less hagiographic biography that also covers the man’s time in the Senate.

The US Postal Service has a policy: no stamps honoring a person until they have been dead at least a quarter century. Hatfield has another fourteen years to go. Let historians take the time to fully examine his life.

The First Time I Met Hatfield

In 1979, James Monteith (then executive director of the Oregon Wilderness Coalition or OWC, later the Oregon Natural Resources Council and now Oregon Wild) and I got a meeting with Hatfield in Washington, DC. At the time I was OWC’s western field representative, and my trip to DC was the first time I had been east of the Mississippi River. A Hatfield aide took us from his office in one of the Senate office buildings to the Capitol. We were ushered into Hatfield’s hideaway in the Capitol building, a small and very ornately decorated private den with only a room number on the door. It was meant to impress, and it did. 

Hatfield was very charismatic and immediately put us at ease. He was so charismatic that after that first meeting, I liked him even when I knew he was screwing me (actually nature). He was extremely smart and listened when we talked. Actually, he was reading Monteith and me like we were books.

We first chatted about politics, and he said he wanted to get a wilderness bill done before the 1980 election. Ronald Reagan hadn’t yet obtained the Republican nomination and was still a long shot. Hatfield said, “Can you imagine if Reagan becomes president?” and every one of the four of us in the room laughed and rolled our eyes. Less than two years later on January 20, Hatfield was in a morning coat welcoming Reagan to the Capitol building in his role as chair of the congressional inaugural committee.

Of course, we got to talking about wilderness, of which Hatfield was not a great fan. Only two years earlier, Hatfield had very reluctantly changed his position to favor returning the French Pete Valley to the Three Sisters Wilderness. French Pete was the first wilderness battle in Oregon that involved significant amounts of virgin older forest.

Monteith was a wildlife biologist at heart and brought up how many medium and large mammals—especially predators—need wilderness to prosper, if not just exist. Hatfield wasn’t buying it. “When I was growing up in Dallas,” Hatfield said, “we had lots of cougars, but we didn’t have any wilderness.” Dallas is a small community in the mid-Willamette Valley that abuts the Oregon Coast Range. In the 1930s, the Oregon Coast Range still had very large amounts of roadless virgin older forest. By 1979, it did not.

Monteith and I realized that to Hatfield, “wilderness” was merely a land designation in law, while we both felt that “wilderness” was also a character of land in fact. All that those Coast Range cougars knew was that their home was wild.

I was mortified when Monteith tried to make our point by noting that “only God and Congress can make Wilderness.” (I capitalize the W here because James always insisted on it when referring to that designation.) Hatfield was quite the intense Christian, while Monteith and I were quite the contrary. However, I was relieved when Hatfield immediately retorted, “And we don’t let Him in on it until we are damn well ready.” The tiny office filled with laughter all around.

Speaking of mammalian predators, Monteith soon brought up a rare forest-dwelling member of the weasel family, the fisher (Pekania pennanti). To our surprise, Hatfield asked his aide, who had been sitting quietly, if she knew what a fisher was. She said no, so Hatfield proceeded to hold forth on the wilderness-loving species. “Did you know that fishers can kill a porcupine without getting quilled?” he asked the young (enough to be his daughter) aide. She did not. “I’ll show you,” said Hatfield. “Get down on the floor on your hands and knees.” While wide-eyed in shock (as were Monteith and I), she complied even though wearing a dress and some very unsensible shoes. Next, Hatfield got on his hands and knees and mimicked (at a relatively respectful distance, I feel bound to note) how a fisher attacks a porcupine in its quill-free face, flips it on its back, and goes for the kill at its quill-free neck. For a moment, I thought Hatfield was going to insist the nubile aide roll over on her back, but Hatfield returned to his chair and continued talking, and soon so did the aide to her chair.

Hatfield had made clear to us that he was well informed and also very powerful. The meeting ended cordially. (Later, that very aide served in high administrative positions that required Senate confirmation.)

Another Fateful Encounter with Hatfield

One sunrise in June 1984, I ran into Hatfield in the United terminal at Chicago O’Hare. We’d both taken the red-eye from PDX on our way to DCA. Hatfield came up to me and said, “Andy, what brings you to DC?” (Of course, I was secretly thrilled that the senator remembered me and called me by my first name.) The (still-to-this-day) record-sized Oregon Wilderness Act had just become law, and I was feeling quite good about that. (Hatfield was not.)

“Well, Senator, I’m going back to lobby for your timber bailout bill,” I said. Northwest Big Timber had way overbid on many old-growth timber sales and needed congressional relief to avoid massive contract defaults. Enviros favored the legislation because it would cancel many damaging sales and we would have another chance to thwart them as the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management tried to resell them.

“You mean my Federal Timber Purchaser Contract Payment Modification Act?” said Hatfield, rather icily I thought.

“Sure. A lot of those sales are old growth and in roadless areas, so we’d like another shot at saving them in the next wilderness bill,” says I.

After less than the customary few milliseconds of pause, Hatfield, with chilling deliberateness, says, “Andy. I will never ever do another wilderness bill.”

The conversation ended not because the plane was boarding but because there was nothing else to say.

As I pondered the exchange at 33,000 feet over Ohio, I realized that the godfather of Oregon politics had destroyed our hope of ever saving any more wilderness as Wilderness. Hatfield had enacted wilderness bills into law in 1968, 1972, 1978, and 1984. The first of them had carved the Mount Jefferson Wilderness out of a Forest Service Primitive Area pursuant to the Wilderness Act of 1964. The matter had been thrust upon Hatfield early in his first term. The latter three had been passed during—not uncoincidentally—years in which Hatfield stood for re-election. All are wilderness areas today, but it was enough for the senator to declare “never again.”

·      His 1972 legislation added the lower Minam River Canyon to the Eagle Cap Wilderness (~72,000 acres).

·      The 1978 Endangered American Wilderness Act designated or expanded four Oregon wilderness areas (~275,000 acres). All somewhat had timber as an issue, but especially returning French Pete to the Three Sisters Wilderness. Finally, Hatfield had come around. (It was, after all, an election year.)

·      The 1984 Oregon Wilderness Act (~851,000 acres) was primarily about saving as wilderness roadless areas that included large amounts of virgin older forest: Boulder Creek, Cummins Creek, Rock Creek, Drift Creek, Middle Santiam, North Fork John Day, Eagle Cap Additions, Bull-of-the-Woods, Salmon-Huckleberry, Badger Creek, Grassy Knob, Rogue-Umpqua Divide, Table Rock, Mill Creek, North Fork Umatilla, Monument Rock, Strawberry Mountain Additions.

It was logical that we could expect another wilderness bill in 1990. Plotting the acreage of those previously every-six-years Oregon wilderness bills suggested an exponential curve on which we could expect the next wilderness bill to protect ~2 million acres. But alas, there was no Oregon wilderness bill in 1990, as the year before the northern spotted owl had hit the fan.

I consulted with fellow wilderness warrior James Monteith, and we decided to pivot from occasionally saving old growth via wilderness designations brokered at the state delegation level to saving all old growth any which way we could. We would go around Oregon’s political godfather. We had no other choice. The Pacific Northwest forest wars ensued.

(continued next week)

Bring Back the Elakha

The sea otter, Enhydra lutris (or “Elakha” in the Chinook Jargon language), was extirpated from Oregon in the early twentieth century. Sea otter slaughter began offshore Oregon in the 1780s, having started earlier elsewhere. The last native sea otter in Oregon was probably shot and killed in 1910  (1910 – 1780 = 130 years), according to Cameron LaFollette, Elakha Alliance board member, executive director of the Oregon Coast Alliance, and quite the Oregon historian.  She provided a copy of an article from the Coos Bay Times from 1910 that noted that sea lion hunters (who did quite well) also shot one sea otter (hey, it didn’t sink) that would fetch $200 to 500 ($5,244 to $13,111 in today’s dollars).

The sea otter should not be confused with other marine mammals found in Oregon, like the northern fur seal, the Steller sea lion, the California sea lion, the northern elephant seal, and the Pacific harbor seal. Nor should it be confused with another marine mammal, the Steller’s sea cow, that once inhabited Oregon but now inhabits nowhere. From its first discovery by Europeans in 1741, it was extinct by 1768 (1768 – 1741 = 27 frigging years).

It’s time to return the relevance to place names along the Oregon coast such as Otter Rock (Lincoln County) and Otter Point (Curry County). There is a gap of 840 miles between resident sea otters in California and Washington. The Oregon portion of the gap is 360 miles long. The Elakha Alliance is spearheading a multi-organizational and -governmental effort to return the sea otter to its rightful place in Oregon.

Sea Otter Life History Lite

The sea otter is the smallest marine mammal in North America. A member of the weasel family (Mustelidae), the sea otter has a stay-warm strategy that relies not on blubber like other marine mammals but on having the world’s densest fur. Its two-layer fur can have more than 1,000,000 hairs per square inch. A hirsute human head has ~100,000 total hairs (~700 per square inch). The lack of blubber means a need for a lot of fuel to keep them warm, meaning eating 25 to 30 percent of their body weight daily to maintain the high metabolism.

According to Friends of the Sea Otter:

•       average length: 4 to 5 feet long for a male, 2 to 3 feet long for a female

•       average weight: 50 to 100 pounds for a male, 30 to 70 pounds for a female

•       average lifespan in the wild: 10 to 15 years for a male, 15 to 20 years for a female

Sea otters can swim at speeds of up to 5 miles per hour. The longest recorded dive lasted 7 minutes, and the deepest recorded dive was 318 feet. Otters can spend their entire lives at sea but usually not more than a kilometer from shore.

Sea Otter as Keystone and Umbrella

The sea otter is both a keystone species (“a species on which other species in an ecosystem largely depend, such that if it were removed the ecosystem would change drastically”) and an umbrella species (“species selected for making conservation-related decisions, typically because protecting these species indirectly protects the many other species that make up the ecological community of its habitat”).

Sea otters often prefer to dine on sea urchins, which decimate kelp forests. Not enough sea otters means too many sea urchins. Too many sea urchins means ruined kelp forests. Friends of the Sea Otter explains:

Acting as nurseries for many different aquatic species, kelp forests are an integral part of the underwater ecosystem. Without them, developing species would not have their protection, and thus become vulnerable targets. . . . [K]elp forests are a main prey item for sea urchins. With no predators around, sea urchin populations can multiply, forming herds that sweep across the ocean floor devouring entire stands of kelp. Enter the sea otter.

The sea urchin is a main food source for the sea otter. Playing the role as “protector of the kelp beds,” the sea otter is able to maintain the balance of the ecosystem, naturally, by consuming sea urchins. As a result, kelp forests avoid devastation, aquatic species are able to mature and live in their natural environment, and sea otters, a threatened species, are able to survive.

Figure 2. Sea otter consumption of sea urchins helps kelp forests thrive. Source: Wikimedia Commons (Matt Knoth).

According to the Elakha Alliance:

The presence of sea otters once had a profound impact on communities of early people on the Oregon coast. Today, the impact of sea otters on coastal ecosystems is an important story for modern coastal communities as well. A healthy, established population of sea otters can result in more extensive and richer kelp forests that, in turn, attract and retain eggs, larvae, and juveniles of many species of fish and shellfish, including those of commercial importance.

Kelp forests buffer ocean wave action nearshore, helping to protect the shoreline from erosion. Kelp forests increase overall marine productivity and sequester, or capture, large amounts of carbon dioxide from the Earth’s atmosphere. . . .

Sea otters can provide a buffer against the effects of climate change by enabling the growth of kelp and other marine algae which sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide. Their presence can also help curb the growth of sea urchins which can result from a die-off of sea stars due to a “mass wasting” syndrome that has affected the Pacific coast in recent years. Overall, the presence of sea otters in coastal ecosystems can help retain diversity and productivity that create conditions of resilience against the effects of climate change. [citations omitted]

Figure 3. Sea otters improve the health of kelp forests that serve as habitat for many species of fish and other marine life.Source: Wikimedia Commons (Stef Maruch).

Populations Then and Now

The sea otter was hunted to near extinction for its pelts during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Chart 1). Before the massive slaughter began, an estimated 150,000 to 300,000 sea otters lived along 6,000 miles of the North Pacific shore from Japan’s Hokkaido Island to Mexico’s central Baja Peninsula (Map 1). Along the northeast Pacific coast, sea otters ranged continuously from 57°N, where the sea ice starts (well, for now), to 22°N, where the kelp forests end. From Japan to Mexico was a continuous “kelp highway” for sea otters.

Chart 1. Sea otter pelt sales (in thousands) on the London exchange 1870–1910 (spike is 1884). Source: Wikimedia Commons (Kalan).

Map 1. The global range of the sea otter (Enhydra lutris). The range was once generally continuous from Japan to Mexico (the red line). Today, one of the big gaps is Oregon. Source: Wikimedia Commons (Cristophe Cagé).

As shown in Map 1, there are three subspecies of sea otter:

•       northern, also called Alaskan (Enhydra lutris kenyoni)

•       common, also called Asian or Russian (E. l. lutris)

•       southern, also called Californian (E. l. nereis)

The remote coastline of California sheltered small southern sea otter colonies from the fur trade. Fifty that survived from the original estimated 16,000 individuals were rediscovered in 1938, and that population has grown to nearly 3,000.

After 59 Alaskan sea otters were relocated from the Aleutian Islands to Washington’s Olympic Peninsula in 1969 and 1970, that restored population declined to somewhere between 10 and 43 individuals before climbing to 208 in 1989. In 2017, more than 2,000 individuals were estimated in an expanded range—still a fraction of the original range.

The population of northern sea otters is also growing in British Columbia after their reintroduction to the west coast of Vancouver Island. There are currently between 65,000 and 78,000 northern sea otters in Alaska, Washington, and British Columbia combined.

A relocation effort was also made in Oregon. According to the Elakha Alliance, in July 1970, 29 northern sea otters were relocated from Amchitka Island in the Aleutians to Redfish Rocks, and a year later 24 animals were relocated to near Port Orford (both in Curry County). In July 1971, 40 animals were also released at Cape Arago (Coos County). While pups were observed, the entire population had declined dramatically by 1975 and were gone by 1981 for reasons not well understood.

Wikipedia sums up the failed reintroduction effort and then reports:

In 2004, a male sea otter took up residence at Simpson Reef off of Cape Arago for six months. This male is thought to have originated from a colony in Washington, but disappeared after a coastal storm. On 18 February 2009, a male sea otter was spotted in Depoe Bay off the Oregon Coast. It could have traveled to the state from either California or Washington. [citations omitted] 

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature notes that population estimates for sea otters from 2004 to 2012 add up to a worldwide population of 125,831. This means that from 42 percent to 84 percent of the original population still survives. Hell, a lot of species are far worse off—but globally (meaning in the northern Pacific Ocean), the species continues to decline and the populations are limited to small pockets.

In fact, under the Endangered Species Act, the southern sea otter is listed as threatened throughout its range (California, Oregon, and Washington), while the northern sea otter is listed as threatened throughout most, but not all, of its range (Alaska, and historically, British Columbia and Washington). Though presently absent, the sea otter is also listed as an endangered species under the Oregon Endangered Species Act.

Threats to the sea otter now include offshore oil and gas exploitation, local officials in Alaska wanting to put a bounty on sea otter pelts to protect shell fisheries, legal and illegal harvest of otters, fishing and harvesting aquatic resources (especially crab), recreational activities, oil pollution (oil coating the fur destroys its protective layer, resulting in hypothermia; as the otter attempts to clean its coat, it ingests large amounts of oil), urban runoff, and sewage outfall. Another threat is the climate catastrophe, as warming ocean waters and increased acidification can affect the health of kelp forests and the shellfish that otters eat, as well as promoting the spread of toxic algae that cause paralytic shellfish poisoning.

Which Subspecies to Reintroduce?

Given the earlier failure of reintroduction efforts, Oregon sea otter aficionados are proceeding carefully. One important question is: Just where was the demarcation line between the northern sea otter (Enhydra lutris kenyoni) and the southern subspecies (E. l. nereis)? Which subspecies was offshore Oregon? Perhaps both? Because northern sea otters far outnumber southern sea otters, moving otters south to Oregon would have less impact than moving them north to the state, but there is some evidence that southern sea otters might be better matched genetically to historical stocks in Oregon.

A 2007 research paper published in Conservation Genetics examined the genotypes of sixteen sea otters that lived before the slaughter commenced and whose bones were housed in the Archaeology Department at Oregon State University, and found that the “genotypic composition of pre-harvest otter populations appears to match best with those of contemporary populations from California and not from Alaska, where reintroduction stocks are typically derived.”

However, “More recent DNA and morphological analysis of bones in Oregon middens shows characteristics of both,” says Bob Bailey, a board member of the Elakha Alliance. “Geneticists now do not think there is any meaningful difference in terms of translocation.” Bailey further reports: “No decision has been made about source stock. We are about to embark on a feasibility study that should help us figure this out, but it is going to take a couple of years. The principal investigator for the study is a semi-retired sea otter scientist with forty years of experience.”

Controversy Expected

Bringing the elakha back to Oregon will be controversial, judging by past conservation efforts, especially related to species harvested for human consumption. The Elakha Alliance sums it up well:

If experience in other Pacific coast areas is a guide, the return of sea otters to the Oregon coast will likely have a mix of economic and social impacts depending on the location of their return and the number of otters. But in time, sea otters would likely have a profound impact on the diversity and productivity of Oregon’s nearshore ecosystem that, in turn, would result in an overall benefit to commercial and recreational fisheries that rely on a healthy marine ecosystem.

If they return to one or more estuaries, sea otters would likely increase water quality, reduce the presence of the invasive green crab, and promote the growth of eelgrass. Sea otters would also likely be a draw for outdoor enthusiasts and recreationists as they are in California and Alaska, and be a symbol of pride in some communities. In the long run, a robust population of sea otters would likely result in an increase in kelp beds, which would capture and store carbon dioxide, a leading cause of ocean acidification.

However, a growing population of sea otters in some areas could disrupt existing patterns of catch and consumption by some ocean users; such as sea urchin harvesters, commercial and recreational crabbers, and other harvesters of shellfish. Such competition and conflict between sea otters and humans is present today in several locations in southeast Alaska where the number of sea otters is in the thousands. But because sea otters do not readily migrate, have small home ranges, and have only one pup per year, their population growth and geographic spread will be slow. So it will be important to identify and anticipate such potential conflicts and choose release sites to minimize chances of conflict with other uses.

Putting Your Money Where Your Heart Is

If you want to know more, you may enjoy reading Return of the Sea Otter: The Story of the Animal That Evaded Extinction on the Pacific Coast by Todd McLeish.

Two conservation organizations focus exclusively on the sea otter. The Elaka Alliance focuses exclusively on returning sea otters to Oregon. 

• Friends of the Sea Otter — “Friends of the Sea Otter (FSO) is an advocacy group, founded in 1968, dedicated to actively working with state and federal agencies and other groups to maintain, increase and broaden the current protections for the sea otter, a species currently protected by state and federal laws, and with two geographic populations on the Endangered Species list. We wish to inspire the public at large about the otters’ unique behavior, habitat, and to take action to recover this remarkable species.”

• Elakha Alliance—“The Elakha Alliance is an Oregon-based nonprofit organization dedicated to restoring sea otters and the health of Oregon’s nearshore marine ecosystem. Named for the Chinook Indian word for sea otter, the Elakha Alliance brings together coastal Indian tribes, conservation organizations, academic institutions, community groups, individuals, and others interested in sea otter conservation and coastal ecology.”

Send one or both organizations money. I just made a tax-deductible donation to the Elakha Alliance because they are Oregon-centric and I know and have high confidence in several members of their board of directors.

Figure 4. The sea otter is missing in action offshore Oregon. Source: Wikimedia Commons (Marshal Hedin).