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from its rock. There is no doubt that otters eat and relish the abalone, but the 

 mollusk's formidable defenses may tend to deflect the otters' attention to easier 

 prey. ( Sea otters are known to eat at least 26 species of marine life in California.) 

 All told, the otters did the abalone more good than harm by keeping the kelp 

 ecosystem stable. They did eat enough abalone that commercial abalone fish- 

 ing would have been unprofitable, but sport divers could easily have found enough 

 for a hearty snail lunch, 



Man was not content, however, to fit in so amiably. First he eliminated the 

 otters as rulers of the kelp. Uncontrolled, both abalone and urchin populations 

 boomed. Then fishermen took the shellfish much faster than they were able to 

 reproduce themselves. One area after another was stripped of abalone, without 

 a single otter present on which to blame the havoc. 



Friends of the Sea Otter (FSO), based in Big Sur, was formed to try to pro- 

 tect otters from assassination and to fight off attempts to "manage" them for 

 the abalone fishermen's benefit. The group points out that even if abalone ex- 

 ploitation had not been vastly too great before, new state regulations are making 

 it so. The new regulations permit the commercial exportation of abalone from 

 California to other states so it can compete with imports from Mexico and 

 Japan. 



Nobody paid much attention to the urchins, which continued to multiply. 

 Finally, in recent years, they began to make their presence known in a painful 

 way. Mountains of kelp started washing ashore. Investigation has shown that 

 a plague of sea urchins is clearcutting the kelp forests, leaving wastelands be- 

 hind that support neither abalone nor very much else. 



The abalone thus are in a pinch between overfishing and loss of habitat. Thjey 

 cannot be expected to survive as much more than an oddity at the present rate 

 of exploitation, which is not controlled by realistic regulations. Lately some 

 divers have been trying to deal with the urchin threat by going out with ham- 

 mers to smash them, hoping themselves to replace the otter as the urchins' 

 controlling power. They are also going into the clearcut zones to replant the kelp. 

 Luckily, kelp regenerates with little trouble, as it is among the world's fastest- 

 growing plants. Laudable though this effort is, given the extent of the kelp beds 

 to be protected, hammering urchins to death is an uncomfortably close plarallel 

 to swatting flies with a mallet. It kills them, but. . . . The otters, once on duty 

 around the clock in large numbers, were doing a better job of it. Even the abalone 

 fishermen have recognized this, proposing that otters be turned loose in urchin- 

 infested areas. 



The California Department of Fish and Game (DFG) has conducted pre- 

 liminary studies to determine whether the transplanting of otters from one area 

 to another might not only end the conflict between abalone fishermen and otters, 

 but at the same time give the otters some insurance against sudden extinction 

 from a massive oil spilL Marine biologist Ken Wilson, formerly in charge of the 

 department's sea otter studies, believes that the California otter population also 

 could be decimated either by an epidemic or by overcrowding and subsequent 

 starvation if otters are left in their present refuge. "We would like to split the 

 California sea otter population so as to avoid a biological catastrophe," Wilson 

 says. 



DFG claims that more than 40 otters per square mile is too many for the 

 natural food supply of the refuge to supi>ort They cite Alaska, where the 

 northern otter population has reached this high a density, as an example of the 

 need for artificial reduction of the otter population. (In Alaska, otters in high- 

 density areas unfortunately are killed for their fur. The taking of over 500 pelts 

 a year has led, also imfortunately, to revival of the otter fur industry. Legal sales 

 of otter pelts are again featured in the Seattle Fur Exchange. ) 



DFG's own experimental otter transplant demonstrated the hazards of trying 

 t-o move the otters, the only alternative to killing them if they are to be 

 "managed." Using techniques first tried in an Alaskan otter transplant in 1969, 

 23 otters were netted from the battlegroimd at the southern end of the range. 

 Seventeen wer^ tagged and released at Big Creek, roughly in the middle of the 

 refuge. Another three died during the operation. The last three were given for 

 study to the Stanford Research Institute. Otters do not do well in captivity ; these 

 three died within a few monthsi. Of the otters released at Big Creek, nobody 

 knows whether any subsequently died from the effects of the netting, handling, 

 and tran.sportation. But within 5 months five of the 17 were found back at Cam- 

 bria where they had been captured. 



