Why the return of sea otters to Canada’s west coast is making waves
The group of otters floats between amber stalks of kelp, preening their coats and foraging for urchins. Sheltered in a natural bay off Haida Gwaii, one of the most unforgiving coastlines on the west coast of Canada, the skittish mammals are hidden – from the fast-moving currents, and from groups that have pledged to shoot them on sight.
Generations ago, the global frenzy for pelts pushed northern sea otters to extinction in these islands. In recent years, however, a few dozen have returned, travelling up the Pacific coast in search of new food sources. Their location remains a secret amid fears that the fledgling population could be wiped out once more.
To some, their return is a conservation success, and a testament to the resilience of the natural world. Experts hope their presence marks a turning point in the future health of the ecosystem.
But to others they are feared and despised. Some communities worry the creatures’ insatiable appetites could wreak havoc on a fragile marine ecosystem that has adapted to their absence.
For thousands of years, sea otters and the Haida people lived alongside one another. They enjoyed many of the same foods – urchins, clams, crabs, mussels and abalone – prompting the Haida to cultivate extensive clam gardens as a hedge against the hungry otters. Their pelts– sea otters have the densest fur in the world – were also prized by the Haida for use in ceremonial regalia, clothing and bedding.
That coexistence was shattered in the early 1800s when otters became the focus of a maritime fur trade. Russian, Spanish, American and British traders all battled for control of valuable resources along the Pacific coast. The global population of northern otters dropped from 300,000 to as few as 1,000. In Haida Gwaii, they disappeared completely.
Their absence reverberated through finely tuned marine ecosystems.
“When urchin populations are kept in check by sea otters, you get these healthy kelp forests – which create habitat, provide food for ocean creatures and for people, and encourage biodiversity,” says Hannah Kobluk, a Vancouver-based marine ecologist and doctoral researcher. “But when otters disappear, that balance disappears.”
Without otters, urchins move in to devour the vegetation, in effect clearcutting undersea kelp forests and creating “urchin barrens”. The spiny echinoderms reproduce rapidly, and can enter a dormant “zombie” state where they eke out an existence but prevent kelp from returning. Today, miles of these underwater barrens make up much of the seascape off Haida Gwaii.
As a keystone species, otters have an outsized effect on an ecosystem, Kobluk says. Efforts to repopulate their traditional range began in the 1970s on parts of the Pacific coast, using Alaska sea otter populations. Haida Gwaii was never one of those locations, but the effects of the otters’ return elsewhere has provided a glimpse into possible changes.
Kelp forests have started to come back, which brings a host of benefits – but otters also need to eat a quarter of their body weight each day, and have been feasting on prized shellfish.
“In some places, the conservation of otters was seemingly given the highest level of priority, with other values falling by the wayside,” says Kobluk, who works alongside hereditary leaders from the Haida, Heiltsuk and Nuuchah-nulth nations as part of the Coastal Voices project.
“People in communities that relied on clam fisheries, for example, might feel that the otters’ rights are prioritised over their own,” says Kobluk.
Because otters are an endangered species, there is little recourse for