Sea Otter Love

by Macy Kissel

Think of your ideal girl…thick, luscious hair…loves going out to get a bite to eat…enjoys cuddling and holding hands...cares about helping the environment…and is an aquatic member of the weasel family…perfect, right? Along the coasts of the Pacific Ocean in North America and Asia lives this ideal species that you might know as sea otters. 

A Day In the Life

Like myself on a Sunday, otters spend 11 hours a day resting and sleeping. They rarely sleep alone, rather in rafts, which happen when otters group together (can be anywhere from two to 100) and hold hands so they don’t float away from the pack. Otters don’t have to expend energy to float on their backs due to their fluffy float coat. 

As they need to take good care of their coats to remain waterproof and buoyant, sea otters are like your type A roommate, always cleaning. They don’t have a  layer of blubber like most marine mammals, instead having a thick underfur that traps air to form an insulating layer against any chilly waters. They actually have the world’s densest fur; at its thickest, it is made up of more than a million hairs per square inch. (For reference you probably have 10,000 hairs on your head, less if you’re balding, sorry Dad). For those reasons, the pelts were extremely valuable, leading to an increase in otter hunting, which put the species  at near extinction. In 1977 sea otters became protected under the Endangered Species Act — and nongovernmental organizations helped support the regrowth of the population.

Earth Day, Everyday

There is so much more to these aquatic balls of fluff than meets the eye. The sea otter is an aquatic environmentalist, an SJW queen. The sea otter is a keystone species, which means the health of sea otters indicates the health of other species and ecosystems nearby. They are carnivorous, munching on sea urchins and other small animals that graze on giant kelp. When urchins go unchecked, they create areas called “urchin barrens” where nothing else can live. With sea otters helping to keep the urchins under control, kelp forests can thrive and support a rich community of plants and animals. 

How to Eat Your Body Weight and Still be a Skinny Queen

Otters often spend their days floating in kelp forrests, diving down when they need to eat.  Sea otters may hunt on the seafloor, but they always returns to the surface to eat. They even float on their backs and use their chest as a table. In estuaries, the wide mouth of streams that meet the cold ocean, sea otters keep eelgrass healthy by eating crabs, which in turn allows the sea slug population to thrive. 

Speaking of snacks, do you ever grab an extra treat to save for later? Like a half-eaten cookie on your bedside table in case you wake up hungry? Sea otters do too! An otter’s coat has pockets—loose skin under each forearm (relatable)—that allows them to stash prey during a dive, leaving their paws free to hunt some more. And if you’re worried about those extra snacks catching up to sea otters, don’t worry, sea otters have a high metabolism, meaning they can stay warm (and skinny) while eating about a quarter of their body weight each day. You would have to eat 35-40 pounds of food a day to match that. 

What is an article about sea otters doing in a love-themed issue?

Sea otters know about maternal love, in fact, sea otter females are some of the most incredible and caring moms. Mother otters give birth in the water and nurture their young while floating on their backs, holding their infants on their chests to nurse, groom, and eventually as a safe base while they swim and learn to hunt. Mothers often spend their entire lives with a pup. Don’t get it twisted though—while we support and love female otters, we do not stand by male sea otters. Male otters’ aggressive and downright cruel breeding practices vicitmize many of our girly otters, and have led to much of the sea otter misinformation on the internet. Basically, like most humans, the girls are so much better.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium holds five non-releasable female sea otters. These are otters that were rescued off the coast of California and due to health issues, were deemed non-releasable and are now cared for in captivity. Behind the scenes, these females act as surrogate mothers to other rescued sea otter pups that they raise as their own. By teaching these pups the skills needed to be wild sea otters, like grooming and foraging, the aquarium is then able to release the pups into the wild. This surrogate program has been in effect for over 15 years and hundreds of stranded sea otter pups have been rehabilitated and released back into the wild to continue to bolster their habitat. In the years since the Aquarium began releasing otters to seagrass beds in the coastal wetlands have rapidly expanded — evidence of the power of sea otters to restore wetland ecosystems.

During this season of love, call your mom and thank her for raising you, loving you, and nurturing you into the person you are today. And if you’re feeling the extra fluffy love, check out a 24-hour livestream of the otters at Monterey Bay Aquarium where you can also donate to support the program.