recommended that the Fish and Wildlife Service adopt and 

 implement a management strategy recognizing the ultimate need 

 for "zonal" management of sea otters and the need to establish 

 one or more sea otter colonies at a site or sites not likely 

 to be affected by an oil spill in or near the population's 

 current range. The Fish and Wildlife Service concurred with 

 the Commission's recommendation and incorporated the zonal 

 management concept into the Southern Sea Otter Recovery Plan 

 adopted in February 1982. 



Past Commission efforts to help with development and 

 implementation of an effective Southern Sea Otter Recovery 

 Plan are described in previous Annual Reports. Brief summaries 

 of some of these efforts and descriptions of actions taken in 

 1988 are provided below. 



Incidental Take 



When the California sea otter population was listed as 

 threatened in January 1977, it was assumed that the popula- 

 tion was increasing and would continue to increase at about 

 five percent per year for the foreseeable future. However, 

 as noted in previous Commission reports, subsequent studies 

 indicated that substantial numbers of sea otters were being 

 caught and killed incidentally in coastal gill and trammel 

 net fisheries and that this incidental take may have been 

 sufficient to stop and reverse the population increase. 

 Thousands of sea birds and non-target fish species, as well 

 as sea otters and other marine mammals, also were being caught 

 and killed in gill and trammel net fisheries along the central 

 California coast. 



The State of California recognized the problems being 

 caused by this indiscriminate by- catch and, beginning in 

 1982, enacted a series of regulations prohibiting the use of 

 gill and trammel nets in areas where birds, sea otters, and 

 other marine mammals were likely to be entangled. These 

 prohibitions have reduced the incidental take of sea otters 

 and, although it is too soon to be certain, the results of 

 sea otter surveys as shown in the table on the following page 

 suggest that the population is beginning to increase. 



Sea Otter Amendment to the Endangered Species Act and the 

 Translocation Decision Process 



To promote protection and recovery of the California sea 

 otter population while minimizing adverse effects on commercial 

 and recreational fisheries, the Commission, as noted earlier, 

 recommended in December 1980 that the Fish and Wildlife Service 

 adopt and implement a management strategy recognizing the 

 ultimate need for "zonal" management of sea otters and the 

 need to establish one or more sea otter colonies at a site or 



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