By APRIL ERHLICH/Oregon Public Broadcasting
Two male sea otters appear to be calling Cannon Beach home, providing a rare sight for Oregonians visiting Ecola Point.
Even so, biologists aren’t expecting a bigger population boom in the near future, since female sea otters don’t usually migrate far from home. The nearest population is about 100 miles away.
A group of conservationists with the nonprofit Elakha Alliance documented multiple sea otter sightings through June, which was first reported by the Cannon Beach Gazette. These creatures have rarely been seen in the state since they were wiped out by fur traders in the early 1900s.
When Chanel Hason, biologist and communications director for the Elakha Alliance, first heard about a sea otter swimming off the Oregon coast, she figured it likely was a common river otter. Then she drove out to Ecola Point to see for herself.
“And then, lo and behold, there were actually two, which I haven’t seen ever happening along the Oregon coast,” Hason said.
Oregon is the only West Coast state that’s no longer home to sea otters. About 2,000 live around the Olympic Peninsula in Washington, and some populations are spread through the central California coast.
River otters often appear along Oregon’s coast and other regions west of the Cascades, but they hunt in both fresh and saltwater environments and spend more time on land. They have four paws, their movements are quick and agile, and they swim on their stomachs.
Hason said these two males appear to be from the northern sea otter subspecies in Washington. They might have ventured away from the pack in search of females. The chance that female sea otters will join them is highly unlikely, Hason said, since females tend to stick to the pack. Sometimes males will venture off if they’re sick or looking for mates, but females rarely join them.
“So, even though we see two [sea otters] now off of Cannon Beach doesn’t mean that they’re just going to naturally reestablish, because that’s just not how it works,” Hason said.
About a handful of dead sea otters wash up on Oregon’s coast every year, Hason said. Usually they’re so decomposed that biologists can’t determine how they died, though sometimes they have apparent shark bites. Hanson said biologists aren’t sure how these carcasses end up here.
The Elakha Alliance is a conservation group based in Siletz with a mission to reestablish sea otters in Oregon. To do so, it hopes to pull from another state’s population. In 2022, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service published a report concluding that reintroducing sea otters to Oregon and Northern California was feasible and environmentally beneficial. It’s unclear if the agency will initiate the reintroduction.
Sea otters are what biologists call a “keystone species,” in that they play a crucial role in balancing their ecosystem. By feasting on sea urchins, they help keep that population from decimating kelp forests. In Oregon, sunflower sea stars had been keeping the urchin population in check, but most were wiped out by sea star wasting disease between 2013 and 2015.
“Without these two predators in the ecosystem, these sea urchins are having a heyday and eating kelp forests at an alarming rate,” Hason said. “It’s really bad.”
Hason said it’s not clear if these two sea otters will stick around once they realize there aren’t any females. In the meantime, local biologists are studying their foraging habits to understand how sea otters might fair if a population was reintroduced to the state.