By Oregon Coast TODAY
Briefly interrupted by the pandemic, the annual Williams Lecture Series is back with an important presentation at the Lincoln City Cultural Center on Thursday, Feb. 20.
Chanel Hason, director of outreach and community relations for the Elakha Alliance, will discuss the organization’s efforts to restore sea otters to the Oregon Coast. She will also cover how these charismatic marine mammals are vital to the health of our coastal ecosystems and the history behind their disappearance.
Hason has a rich background in marine biology, environmental education and nonprofit management. She is an alum from California State University-Monterey Bay, and volunteered with sea and river otters at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. She has conducted marine science research on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and worked for Jean-Michel Cousteau’s Ambassadors of the Environment program at the Ritz Carlton Reserve in Puerto Rico.
She moved to Oregon in 2016 to obtain a degree in sustainability education from Portland State University. Hason is also a former Miss Scuba USA, having represented the United States in Malaysia at the 2013 Miss Scuba International Pageant.
The quest to restore sea otters received a recent boost, when the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians received a three-year, $1.56 million grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to support Tribal efforts to return sea otters to the Oregon and Northern California coasts.
The grant is through the America the Beautiful Challenge, a partnership between the Department of the Interior, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Defense and Native Americans in Philanthropy.
The project is titled Bringing Xvlh-t’vsh Home: Indigenous-led Planning for Sea Otters’ Return to the Oregon and Northern California Coast.
“I am pleased that after years of collaboration with the Elakha Alliance and others, we will now be able to take steps with other Tribal nations and partner organizations to return this culturally important species to their ancient home,” said Tribal chair Delores Pigsley. “This funding will enable us to build capacity and expertise to lead or participate in sea otter reintroduction and management and to elevate the role of coastal Indian Tribes in marine stewardship.”
The grant will support additional planning and technical capacity within the Siletz Tribe as well as the Confederated Tribes of the Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians; the Yurok Tribe; the Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation and other regional partners and collaborators.
The project will also focus on building support for sea otter reintroduction from coastal Tribes, ocean stakeholders and coastal communities in the region: completing key scientific studies and conducting socio-economic assessments of potential reintroduction sites.
Sea otters have long been recognized as a keystone species that promotes the biological productivity and ecological resilience of nearshore and estuarine ecosystems. Sea otters were once plentiful from Alaska south to Baja, but have been absent from Oregon for more than a century due to the maritime fur trade.
With kelp forests declining at an alarming rate due to ocean warming and over-predation by sea urchins, sea otter reintroduction is considered part of a long-term solution to restore and maintain healthy nearshore ecosystems in Oregon. In estuaries, sea otters protect eelgrass habitat by keeping populations of small crabs, including invasive green crabs, under control.
“Indian people of coastal Oregon and Northern California referred to sea otters by many different words,” Pigsley said. “These many names reflect their presence and importance to our people. We now know that they enabled rich marine and estuarine ecosystems that provided food and materials our ancestors needed for life. This grant will help us to bring these relatives home.”
The Williams Lecture Series is presented by the Oregon Coast Community College Foundation.
The presentation begins at 6 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 20 at the Lincoln City Cultural Center, 540 N.E. Hwy. 101. For more information about the Elakha Alliance, go to www.elakhaalliance.org.
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