THE SEA OTTER IN THE EASTERN PACIFIC OCEAN 185 



San Juan group, were from the sea otter. Comparison with speci- 

 mens in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service collection showed them 

 to be phalanges, one from a front and one from a hind paw (Uni- 

 versity of Washington collection no. 455J105). Dr. Greengo esti- 

 mates that the remains were deposited at the site 1,500 years ago. 

 Sea otter bones occur quite frequently in midden sites on the outer 

 coast of Washington. It appears that during the time of human 

 occupation, the sea otter was extremely scarce or absent within the 

 enclosed waters of Puget Sound. Certainly the "great numbers of 

 sea otters" in the Columbia River as far up as Celilo Falls recorded 

 by Lewis and Clark (see Burroughs, 1961) were not sea otters but, 

 as Bailey (1936) and Scheffer (1964) point out, harbor seals 

 (Phoca vitulina). 



OREGON 



Bones found in middens along the Oregon coast indicate that 

 the sea otter was once abundant there, but Bailey (1936) records 

 that after 1876 the species was not again reported from Oregon. 

 Mrs. V. F. Martin (letter, 12 August 1965) told me of an uncon- 

 firmed report that may represent the last of the original sea otter 

 population in Oregon: 



In answer to my query to Otter Rock, Oregon, a correspondent (signed C. 

 Jones) wrote me on July 29, 1965: "Frank Priest of Newport, Oregon (now 

 deceased) told me several years ago that the last otter taken here was by 

 he and Joe Biggs (deceased) of Agate Beach, Oregon. That was in the year of 

 1906, and they sold it for $900,00. (Rich Chinese in San Francisco were the 

 otter buyers for local people.)" 



A recent sighting about 30 miles north of Tillamook Bay, near 

 Neahkahnie, at about 45°44' N. lat. (Pedersen and Stout, 1963) 

 has not been confirmed by other observers. 



It is a matter of speculation that occasional otters may wander 

 down the coast from Prince William Sound, as far as the outer 

 coast of British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon, or that stray 

 animals move northward from the well-established California 

 population. A linear distance along the Pacific Coast of approxi- 

 mately 2,000 miles separates the sea otter colony at Kayak Island, 

 Alaska, from the central California populationo 



. CALIFORNIA POPULATION 



\ Although reports of fish and game wardens recorded the con- 

 tinual presence of a small herd of sea otters during early years of 

 the present century, it was not until 19 March 1938 that their 



