THE CALLS POURED in. To the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, to the National Parks Service and to the Olympic Coast Marine Sanctuary.
Have you seen all those sea otters?
What visitors were spying off the Pacific Ocean coastline, a raft of hundreds upon hundreds of sea otters, was unusual in both scope and location.
“They just look like a dark brown carpet when they are going up and down on the swell,” said Steve Jeffries, a research scientist with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Marine Mammal Investigations unit.
“It’s a pretty spectacular sight.”
And an unusual one so close to shore.
“Typically these large group are further offshore near Destruction Island, so people at Kalaloch and Ruby Beach don’t ever see them,” Jeffries said.
“There were almost as many otters in that one raft as we counted for the entire range in Washington for 2004.”
The sea otter sightings dovetailed with the annual aerial and ground surveys of the species conducted late last month by Fish and Wildlife, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary, the Seattle Aquarium, Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium and the Makah and Quinault tribes.
Jeffries said he came upon the large raft of sea otters near Hoh Head, a point of land jutting into the Pacific Ocean, just north of the mouth of the Hoh River.
“This group of 687 animals is the largest group, the largest raft of sea otters I have seen,” said Jeffries, who participated in the first such count as a grad student in 1978 and has worked on the surveys as a Fish and Wildlife employee since 1980.
“In the past we’ve seen groups of 300 to 400 before but well offshore, so that’s a large group,” Jeffries said.
Jeffries said sea otters typically forage for urchins, clams, mussels, crabs, snails and chitons from first light to mid-morning, then raft up together to effectively socialize while digesting their morning meal.
“They stay together until mid-afternoon and then disperse and forage again until late in the evening,” Jeffries said.
These rafts also are usually segregated by sex, with male rafts and female and pups typically not co-mingling but located in the same general area.
“For some reason in this big raft they were mixed together,” Jeffries said.
“This was impressive, even for me.”
Jeffries said surveys have been conducted from the Columbia River, north to Point Grenville and along the outer Olympic Peninsula coast to Cape Flattery then east into the Strait of Juan de Fuca past Pillar Point to Freshwater Bay.
Historically, sea otters have stayed west of Pillar Point, although some stragglers are known to inhabit points further east such as near Protection Island, in the San Juan Islands and in parts of Puget Sound.
A preliminary count of about 1,700 sea otters was made during the 2016 survey, according to Jeffries.
We didn’t see any sea otters east of Neah Bay, but we know they are there,” Jeffries said.
“There’s probably about a dozen that occur from Pillar Point to Neah Bay.”
Jeffries said fog curtailed four of six planned aerial surveys in June.
Population decimated
For decades, sea otters were just a memory in Washington state.
The effects of more than a century of unfettered maritime fur trading eliminated the sea otter population off the Washington coast by 1910.
“At one point after the Revolutionary War furs were used for currency or to barter for goods because the U.S. government was in its infancy and broke from fighting England,” Jeffries said.
Jeffries said the final sea otter pelt sold for $1,000 at that time, which is equivalent to around $25,000 today.
“Washington didn’t have sea otters again until they were translocated in 1969 and 1970 from the Aleutian Islands,” Jeffries said.
Having them back on the scene is a good thing for the marine environment, Jeffries said.
“They are a keystone species. They play a vital role in shaping kelp bed communities,” Jeffries said.
“When you have sea otters eating urchins, which feed on vegetation, the kelp forests flourish.
“When you have a good kelp bed it makes for a more diverse habitat for other species such as juvenile fish.”
Jeffries said the surveys are conducted to assess the general recovery and provide tracking data on the population to see how well they are doing and for information for oil spill response teams.
Aerial surveys are compared with numbers counted by ground-based crews during the same stretch of time.
The second factor is sea otters are particularly vulnerable to oil spills.
“We’ve had three big oil spills, including the Arco-Anchorage that spilled oil throughout the entire range of their population,” Jeffries said.
Carrying 814,000 barrels of Alaskan crude oil, the Arco-Anchorage ran aground the afternoon of Dec. 21, 1985, as it entered Port Angeles Harbor.
“It is very possible the population of sea otters could be wiped out with a big enough oil spill,” Jeffries said.
Usually these large rafts are located offshore, but this was close enough to shore that the park was getting calls, we were getting calls, everybody was getting calls,”
That cute family of otters living in downtown Port Townsend are river otters, Jeffries said.
“I spoke at Olympic National Park one time and a lot of folks said they see sea otters all the time in the Strait near Port Angeles,” Jeffries said.
“That’s certainly possible, but for the most part what they are seeing are river otters.”
A big reason they aren’t seen in larger numbers east of Pillar Point is the variety of kelp habitats encountered.
“They like giant kelp which is mainly found on the outer coast but occurs into the Strait of Juan de Fuca but stops at Tongue Point,” Jeffries said.
“Sea otters use it for an anchor, they tie themselves up in it so they aren’t moving with the wind and tide and it provides an anchor.”
In the case of the 687-strong sea otter raft, those otters were out of the wind in the lee of North Rock.
902 kings in two days
Anglers boated 902 of Marine Area 9’s (Admiralty Inlet) 3,056-chinook quota last Saturday and Sunday, according to Fish and Wildlife Puget Sound Recreational Salmon Fishery Manager Ryan Lothrop.
“That 902 is a big chunk, but that’s typical you get that first few days of strong effort when the season opens.
“I have heard it did slow down with the big tide changes this week,” Lothrop said.
“The quota this year is very similar to the 2014 quota where we ran a full season.
“That’s what we want to do, to run it through Aug. 15 [the last scheduled day of the fishery].”
Archery shoot in PA
The Wapiti Bowmen will host a Safari Shoot featuring realistic targets such as gorillas, zebras and other creatures at the club headquarters, 374 E. Arnette Road, in Port Angeles, on Saturday and Sunday.
Registration will open at 7:30 a.m. both days.
Shooting fees are $12 for one day or $20 for both days for archers ages 18 and older; $8 or $10 for youth ages 12-17; $4 or $5 for cubs ages 6-11 and free for ages 5 and younger.
Breakfast and lunch will be available, as well as homemade pie by the slice.
A novelty shoot for prizes, including a Vortex range finder and Spot Hogg merchandise, will be held on the flat range Saturday.
Entry is $5 a shot.
A raffle drawing for a Bear Cruzer compound bow which retails for $400 will be held Sunday.
Raffle tickets are $5.
Camping also is available.
For more information, phone Ryan Gedlund at 360-460-8366 or Steve Morgan at 360-582-7987.
Send photos, stories
Have a photograph, a fishing or hunting report, an anecdote about an outdoors experience or a tip on gear or technique?
Send it to sports@peninsuladailynews.com or P.O. Box 1330, Port Angeles, WA 98362.
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Outdoors columnist Michael Carman appears here Thursdays and Fridays. He can be reached at 360-417-3525 or at mcarman@peninsuladailynews.com.
