Victory For Sea Otters - Lawsuit threatening them dismissed

The Ocean Conservancy
Monday, 30 July 2001

SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- A lawsuit filed by fishermen in Santa Barbara against the U.S. that would have harmed declining sea otter populations in California was dismissed today. The lawsuit, filed in April 2000, sought to force the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to capture and move sea otters found south of Point Conception in Santa Barbara County to another location so that fishermen could catch more abalone and sea urchins, the otter's primary diet.

The Fish and Wildlife Service had discontinued sea otter relocation when it discovered that the practice was failing to establish a viable resident population on San Nicolas Island, a remote island in the Santa Barbara Channel. The capture and removal effort was actually killing otters, and the program undermined efforts to rebuild declining otter populations in California.

The agreement to dismiss the lawsuit was hailed by the Ocean Conservancy (formerly the Center for Marine Conservation) which intervened in the lawsuit to protect the otters. "We are very pleased that this threat to sea otters has ended and that the lawsuit has been withdrawn. But many threats remain," said Tim Eichenberg, Program Counsel for the Ocean Conservancy.

"Forcing the capture and removal of otters from their natural range is a bad idea, and the U.S. FWS should move expeditiously to formally end the practice," added Kaitilin Gaffney, the Director of the Conservancy's Santa Cruz Office. "Otters must run a gauntlet of gill nets, fishing lines, boat collisions, oil spills, disease, and pollution. We cannot afford to continue to force the government to take actions that will jeopardize a species already threatened with extinction."

Matthew Rutishauser, Science Director of the Friends of the Sea Otter, noted that "most of the growth in the sea otter population is due to reoccupation of their former range. Preventing the range expansion by moving otters would hinder their recovery."

Once prevalent throughout the west coast of the United States from Baja to northern California, southern sea otters were nearly driven to extinction by the fur trade in the 1800's. A remnant colony survived near Big Sur, and in 1977 the otters were listed under the Endangered Species Act as a species threatened with extinction. By 1995, otter populations had increased to 2,377 but declined again over the next 5 years to 2,090. The most recent otter census indicated that otters were still below 1995 levels.

In 1986 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began an experiment to try to establish an additional sea otter colony on San Nicolas Island. Although 250 otters were captured and 140 were released on the island between 1987-1990, only about 20 remain on the island. The rest disappeared, died, or swam back to their original habitats, and the Service stopped capturing and relocating the otters to reevaluate the practice in 1997. When some otters moved south of their traditional range to Point Conception seeking additional food sources, fishermen sued to have them evicted. The Ocean Conservancy, Friends of the Sea Otter, and several other conservation organizations intervened to protect the otters.

The groups were represented by Donald Mooney of Davis, California, and Donald Baur of the Washington D.C. law firm Perkins Coie.

For more information, or to contact The Ocean Conservancy, see their website at: www.oceanconservancy.org