A significant new, three-year grant will help the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians and others work to reintroduce sea otters to their historic ranges along the Oregon and northern California coasts.
The $1.56 million grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation will bolster long-standing efforts to restore sea otters to coastal waters, where, due to their prized pelts, they were hunted to extinction during the maritime fur trade of the late 1800s.
Tribal chair Delores Pigsley, in a statement accompanying announcement of the grant, said, “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.”
Siletz Tribal member Robert Kentta told KLCC News that the tribe and its partners will likely relocate sea otters from locations on the Pacific coast where the population is healthier.
Other tribes participating in the effort include 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, including the Siletz-based Elakha Alliance.
The alliance has played a pivotal role in pushing for reintroduction of sea otters, which included a 200-page report prepared by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under a directive from Congress.
The 2022 report, while not providing a recommendation as to whether sea otter reintroduction should take place, nonetheless acknowledged that sea otters are a “keystone species” that play a fundamental role in the “ecological health of nearshore ecosystems.”
Sea otters are known, for instance, to prey on sea urchins, which without any other predator to keep them in check, have helped devastate the kelp forests that provide habitat to countless ocean species.
The last known wild sea otter was killed in Oregon in 1906 at Otter Rock near Depoe Bay.
