DISTRIBUTION AND NUMBERS 



Original 



The sea otter originally ranged at least as far south as Morro 

 Hermoso (27°32' N. lat.) on the Pacific Coast of Lower California 

 (Ogden, 1941, p. 7). Scammon (1870) noted that it occurred at 

 Cedros Island, about 30 miles north of Morro Hermoso, and at 

 Guadalupe. From these locations its distribution continued north- 

 ward along the coast of North America to Prince William Sound 

 and westward through the Aleutian, Pribilof, and Commander 

 Islands to the coast of Kamchatka and south through the Kuril 

 Islands at least to northern Hokkaido and southern Sakhalin 

 (Barabash-Nikiforov, 1947) (see map, fig. 67). 



ICE AND THE NORTHERN LIMIT OF RANGE 



The northernmost permanent sea otter population in the Western 

 Hemisphere is in Prince William Sound (60°30' N. lat.) where 

 the sea does not freeze. In the Bering Sea the aboriginal population 

 on the Pribilof Islands (57° N. lat.) and that along the northwest 

 extremity of the Alaska Peninsula (55° N. lat.) overlap the south- 

 ern limit of winter drift ice. That the sea otter is able to survive 

 limited winter ice conditions is also indicated by the fact that the 

 aboriginal Pribilof population was apparently a large and perman- 

 ent one, and that on occasion the sea freezes there for brief periods. 

 Winter drift ice reaches the southeastern Kamchatka coast and 

 Kuril Islands where early sea otter populations were apparently 

 prosperous and are today increasing. Nikolaev (1965b) found in 

 the Kuril Islands that when sea otters were unable to move to ice- 

 free locations in winter they died of starvation. When closed in 

 by ice they crossed its surface or even went overland in search of 

 open water. 



Bee and Hall (1956) record two unsubstantiated sight records 

 of sea otters far north of their usual range in the Arctic Ocean. 

 One was reported in 1951 at Cape Halkett, 70°49' N. lat., 142°16' 

 W. long, and another at Atigaru Point, 70°35' N. lat, 151°50' 

 W. long. C. H. Fiscus, who obtained these reports from other ob- 

 servers, told me in 1964 that he is now doubtful of their authen- 

 ticity. 



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