1936] 



MAMMALS OF OBEGON 



303 



(Forest and Stream 71: 488, 1908) gives the weight as 50 to 75 pounds. 

 Lewis and Clark (1893, p. 853) say that the animal is the size of a large 

 mastiff dog, and give measurements of 5 feet to tail and tail 10 inches. 



Distribution and habitat. Sea otters were originally abundant 

 about the northern shores and islands of the Pacific Ocean from the 

 Kurile Islands to Alaska and on down our coast to the Gulf of Cali- 

 fornia. Sufficient specimens have not been brought together to show 

 the area of intergradation with the subspecies nereis, but all avail- 

 able specimens from the coast of California, Oregon, and Washing- 

 ton can be safely referred to this form, rather than to Iwtris of 

 Kamchatka (fig. 74). 



In 1805 Lewis and Clark found sea-otter skins commonly worn as 

 robes or blankets, among the Clatsop Indians near the mouth of the 

 Columbia. One Indian 

 was " dressed in three very 

 elegant sea-otter skins" 

 which he refused to sell 

 for less than 3 fathoms of 

 blue beads for each skin. 

 As the supply of blue 

 beads was down to 4 fath- 

 oms, and white beads, 

 knives, and all other ar- 

 ticles of trade were re- 

 fused, the skins remained 

 with the Indian and prob- 

 ably kept him warmer 

 than the blue beads would 

 have done, for this was 

 on January 17. Two days 

 later, however, they purchased a single sea-otter skin from another 

 Indian for 4 fathoms of blue and 4 of white beads, and a knife. 



Later, on March 29, 1806, the explorers bought a robe of two sea- 

 otter skins from Indians near Wapato Island for a belt of blue 

 beads. 



The " sea otters " reported by Lewis and Clark as numerous in 

 the Columbia near The Dalles on October 23 and 25, 1805, were later 

 referred to by them as seals, and the authors state that the sea otter 

 resides only on the coast or in the vicinity of salt water. 



In 1811 at the mouth of the Columbia, Franchere (1904, p. 229) 

 said the Clatsop Indians came every day to the sides of the vessel 

 to trade beaver and sea-otter skins. J. K. Townsend listed sea 

 otters among the mammals found in Oregon in 1839 ; George Gibbs 

 reported them as abundant at Port Orford; and as found at the 

 mouth of the Columbia in 1855 and 1856. George Suckley obtained 

 a skull of one at Port Orford about 1856 (received at U. S. National 

 Museum in 1857), and R. W. Dunbar sent in a skull from there in 

 1859. There is another skull in the collection labeled Oregon, 1874, 

 and one from Pistol River, 1875. A femur of a sea otter in a good 

 state of preservation was picked up by Jewett in a shell mound at 

 the mouth of Pistol River in Curry County in 1930 and sent to the 

 Biological Survey for identification. Its bleached and weathered 

 condition does not indicate prehistoric origin. 



FIGURE 74. Range of the southern sea otter, Enhy- 

 dra lutris nereis, on the coast of Oregon. 



