LAPUSH — Researchers say the 1970 reintroduction of 59 sea otters from Alaska in the waters of the North Olympic Peninsula has been very successful.
That’s a concern for area fisheries with sea urchins and other shellfish — the food the otters depend on.
Adult otters have to eat a quarter of their body weight a day to stay warm and survive.
Adult male otters can weigh in at more than 110 pounds — and that’s a lot of sea urchins over time.
Ron Jameson, a retired research biologist who has studied sea otters for more than 30 years, said sea urchin and shellfish fisheries don’t coexist well with sea otters.
Jameson is one of about a dozen scientists that completed the two-year Sea Otter Contaminant Project study last Thursday in the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary.
“They are competing for the same resources,” he said. “The fisheries replaced otters when otters were hunted almost to extinction.
“Now, they are back, and the two cannot occupy the same niche.”
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