<
https://www.hcn.org/issues/57-6/sea-otters-to-get-another-chance-in-oregon-and-northern-california/>
"If you could walk the ocean floor off the coast of Cape Arago in Oregon in the
summer, you’d find yourself in the mysterious green depths of a forest of kelp.
Look up, and you’d see sunlight filtering through the fronds waving in the
current; look down, and you’d see the plants anchored to an ocean floor covered
with life. But if you walked a little bit farther, you’d come to a barren
clearing, no sign of kelp or much else — just a carpet of purple sea urchin, a
creature that is devouring kelp at an alarming rate.
The disappearance of kelp forests is widely felt here; gray whales have changed
their foraging patterns, and the red abalone fishery in Northern California
closed after swarms of urchins and warming waters destroyed more than 90% of
the kelp forests there. In Oregon, a 2024 study by the Oregon Kelp Alliance
found that over a 12-year period, the kelp forest off the coast declined by up
to 73%, primarily due to an out-of-control population of purple sea urchins,
which graze on the kelp. This system is out of balance largely owing to the
absence of a keystone species:
xvlh-t’vsh, which means “sea otter” in the
Athabaskan language of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians. For more than
20 years, the Siletz Tribe has been working to reintroduce sea otters.
At the end of last year, the Siletz Tribe and its partners got a major boost in
this effort: Through the Biden administration’s
America the Beautiful grants
they received a $1.56 million grant over three years to reintroduce the species
to Oregon and Northern California — the second such attempt since the 1970s,
when a state attempt at reintroduction failed. The return of sea otters to the
coast of Oregon will not only impact the broader ecosystem of animal and plant
life, it will also affect a cultural ecosystem as well: The Yurok Tribe, Tolowa
Dee-ni’ Nation and Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw
Indians will work together to renew their long relationship with the sea otter
once it has returned."
Via
Reasons to be Cheerful:
<
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/what-were-reading-bring-back-sea-otters/>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
