Evermann. — Fishery Resources of Pacific. 213 



SEA OTTER. 



Like the three northern species of fur seals, the North- 

 ern Sea Otter (Lataxlutris) is fairly well protected by the 

 fur seal treaty of 1911. But the Southern Sea Otter (Latax- 

 lueris nereis) which occurs on the Southern California coast, 

 receives no protection whatever except such as the State of 

 California can give it within the three-mile limit. Nor is 

 any protection afforded to sea otters in southern waters. 



The early history of California makes frequent refer- 

 ences to sea otters and sea-otter hunting. Indeed, for many 

 years sea-otter and fur-seal hunting constituted almost the 

 only industry on that coast. Sea-otter hunting began there 

 at least as early as 1786, and the industry developed rapidly. 

 Sea otters were found all along the coast from Trinidad Bay 

 southward. They were particularly abundant about the 

 Farallons, among the Channel Islands, and even in San 

 Francisco Bay. They were abundant southward at least as 

 far as the islands of Cedros and Natividad. One early man- 

 uscript (that of Vallejo) says: 'They were so abundant in 

 1812 that they were killed by boatmen with their oars in 

 passing through the kelp." 



In 1812 the Russians began to explore the coast, islands 

 and arms of San Francisco Bay. The records show that 

 they gathered great numbers of sea-otter skins. It is said 

 that, in some weeks they killed in San Francisco Bay alone 

 as many as 700 to 800 sea otters a week. In a period of five 

 years they took 50,000, and thereafter they took 5,000 a 

 year down to 1831. One writer says that by 1817 the otter 

 was exterminated from Trinidad Bay down to San Antonia 

 Cove, near San Francisco, but that hunting continued more 

 or less actively at various places along the coast farther 

 south for years. 



Some of the hunters hired Aleuts and bidarkas from the 

 Russians, and Indians from Mission San Jose, and did quite a 

 good business for some time. 



Particular places where sea otters were taken in large 

 numbers as mentioned in the old records were the Farallons, 

 San Francisco Bay, Purisima, Monterey Bay, San Luis Obispo, 

 Santa Barbara, San Buenaventura, San Diego, Todos Santos 

 and San Quentin ; and San Miguel Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, 

 Santa Catalina, San Clemente, San Nicolas, Coronados, San 

 Benito and Cedros islands. Even as late as 1914 sea otters 

 were occasionally killed about these islands, and it is known 

 that a few still persist in certain favored localities. 



While some of the early accounts are somewhat lacking 

 in definiteness, and while there are many discrepancies, it 



