THE SEA OTTER IN THE EASTERN PACIFIC OCEAN 189 



gave us the following information: Hunting of sea otters at the 

 Commander Islands continued until the 1917-22 period. By that 

 time, when protection was enforced, otters had been extirpated 

 at Bering Island. They have never become reestablished there. 



Sea otter studies were carried on at the Commander Islands by 

 Barabash-Nikiforov during the late 1920's. The animals were 

 captured in nets set in the water and were held captive for study 

 purposes. During the 1950's, Biologist Fedorof and Scientific 

 Worker Danielov held a male and female captive on Bering Island. 

 The animals were captured at Medny. 



Kuril Islands and the Kamchatka Peninsula 



In 1943 Nikolaev (1961) estimated that the sea otters in the 

 Kamchatka Peninsula area numbered about 300, and Klumov 

 (1957) estimated from field observations made in 1951, 1955, and 

 1956 that the Kuril Islands population numbered "at least 1,500 

 head." Belkin (1966) reviews various studies of sea otters in the 

 Kuril Islands and presents the results of his own work from 1962 

 to 1964. His count of otters at 22 islands yielded a total of 4,300 

 animals (3,300 adults and about 1,000 young). 



WORLD POPULATION 



The preceding sections present the data on the world population 

 of sea otters that were gathered during a period of many years. 

 The most recent estimates derived from field observations, when 

 projected at the observed growth rate (for those populations still 

 growing) of one population (about 4 to 5 percent per year), give 

 a computed estimates of about 33,000 sea otters (table 36) extant 

 in the world in 1965. 



On the basis of the historical record and field observations pre- 

 sented in foregoing pages, it appears that sea otters survived at 

 the close of the 1741-1911 period of unregulated exploitation in 

 the following 11 geographical areas: (1) Kuril Islands, (2) Kam- 

 chatka Peninsula, (3) Commander Islands, (4) Rat Islands, (5) 

 Andreanof Islands, (6) The Unimak and Sanak Islands-Sandman 

 Reefs area, (7) Shumagin Islands, (8) the Kodiak to Prince 

 William Sound area, (9) near Monterey, Calif., (10) the Queen 

 Charlotte Islands, British Columbia, and (11) the San Benito 

 Islands, Baja California. From the last two locations, however, 

 they were soon extirpated. 



