Save the Sea Otters!

Sea otters!

Who doesn’t love sea otters? They are cute little sea puppers. They hold hands when they sleep so they do not get separated. Sea Otters are one of the few species in the world to use tools to eat their food. Their fur is so thick it helps keep them warm in freezing water because it is so dense. Their fur can have up to 1 millions hairs per square inch! They are some of the only species in the world to use tools to eat their food.

Pups are born with a thick coat of baby fur and are so buoyant they cannot immediately dive for food

Mothers carry pups on their chest for the first couple months, where they are constantly groomed and protected from the cold water.

What about sea otters?

Sea urchins usually eat kelp in large amounts, destroying kelp forests. Kelp forest help absorb Carbon Dioxide, so with kelp forests diminishing from sea urchins, carbon dioxide is released into the ozone layer. But not with Sea Otters around! Sea otter love to eat sea urchins. So when the population of sea otters are high they help protect the kelp forests. In one article it was stated that “...the presence of otters increased the carbon storage of kelp forests by 4.4 to 8.7 megatons—equivalent to the amount of carbon found in the annual carbon dioxide emissions from 3 to 6 million passenger cars.” Thats a HUGE amount of reduction that these little guys help with!

Sea Otters love sea urchins

Otters are one of few species that use rocks as tools to eat their food.

Whats happening to sea otters?


Sea otter have being going endangered, There are many factors to it, many of them point to humans. During the Fur Trade sea otters became a big target due to their incredibly dense fur. During this time the population of sea otters diminished. Eco scientists attempted to repopulate the species in the mid 1950s. They took a few otters from one area and brought it to a diminishing population off the california coast. And it worked! Sea otter numbers flourished and around that time they discovered how sea otters helped keep kelp forests alive.


Sea Otters wrap theirselves in kelp so they do not float away.

Sea Otters help flourish Kelp Forests

http://news.ucsc.edu/2014/09/sea-otter-population.html
http://www.worldwildlife.org/blogs/good-nature-travel/posts/ten-facts-about-sea-otters
http://seaotters.com/2012/09/thanks-to-sea-otters-kelp-forests-absorb-vast-amounts-of-co2/
http://www.defenders.org/sea-otter/basic-facts
http://protecttheoceans.org/wordpress/?p=271
https://www.animallaw.info/article/where-have-all-sea-otters-gone