October 4, 2013 — A multi-year field study of southern Southeast Alaska Sea Otters is wrapping up. The collaborative effort was prompted largely by fisherman’s concerns over the animal’s impact on commercially-harvested shellfish. The research yielded information on the rapidly growing population of otters, what they eat and how fast they are migrating through the inside waters. Matt Lichtenstein reports:
PHD candidate Zack Hoyt has spent the past four years studying otters in southern southeast. That’s included capturing and tagging 30 of the animals, tracking their movements, and their foraging behavior using radio-telemetry. He’s been working with colleagues from the University of Alaska Fairbanks as well as the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
Overall, Hoyt says southern southeast is seeing an otter population that is growing exponentially but that growth isn’t the same in every area and neither is their diet.
“A lot of areas, areas where otters have been for quite some time, we’re actually seeing a slowing in the population growth and those sort of sub populations have a much different diet than other sub populations within this larger southern southeast population that have larger growth rates and have higher densities,” says Hoyt.
The fur trade wiped out Southeast Otters by the early 20th century but the state re-introduced the animals to the outer coast in the 1960’s and they’ve thrived.
The animals have been re-colonizing southeast inside waters for the last 10 to 15 years, according to Hoyt, who says they’ve been expanding their range by 1.5 to 1.7 square kilometers a year.
The U-S Fish and Wildlife’s estimates the region’s otter population at nearly 26 thousand based on aerial surveys in 2010 and 2011.
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