I'm your host, KP, a marine biologist, up here in the Pacific Northwest, which was once part of the historic range of sea otters.

Now, if you've watched any of our previous Deeper Dives, you'll probably know that sea otters are a member of the Mustelidae family, or the weasel family.

But what you might not know is that they are so different from their other weasel cousins that as late as 1982, scientists actually thought they were more closely related to seals.

So today, we're diving into the history of sea otters to find out how they became so unique, so important, and so dang cute.

Do me a favor first, though.

Hit that like button to help boost this video and YouTube's algorithm, and subscribe if you want to see more of this content.

Mustelids are an incredibly diverse family of mostly terrestrial animals, like stoats, badgers, and even the domesticated ferret.

However, there are 13 aquatic weasels, including the Eurasian otter, the North American river otter, the Asian small-clawed otter, and even the hairy-nosed otter, but of course, also the sea otter.

But I mentioned in the intro that sea otters are very unique among their weasel cousins.

For one, they are the only weasel who doesn't have active scent glands.

They also don't use dens or burrows.

And they're also the only weasel that can live their entire life in the water.

In fact, recent genetic analysis and fossil evidence indicates that sea otters diverged from their closest extant cousins about 5 million years ago, and became isolated in the North Pacific about 2 million years ago.

Cue amazing editing skills of a timeline.

But the first sea otter was not the clam-eating otter that we know and love of today.

It was, in fact, Enhydra macrodonta, or the large-toothed sea otter.

As the name suggests, this otter had large, robust teeth, significantly more so than the modern sea otter.

If you want to know more about sea otter teeth, click on one of my favorite deeper dives in the link right up here.

And like most Pleistocene megafauna, the large-toothed sea otter became extinct in the last ice age.

And that was around 25,000 years ago, giving rise to the modern sea otter, who first evolved in the waters around Russia and Japan, but eventually moved all around the Pacific Rim, even down to the Baja Peninsula.

This is about the same time that the indigenous peoples of North America were estimated to have crossed the land bridge from Asia to Alaska.

And sea otters played a very important role for the maritime indigenous peoples, like the Haida of Haida Gwaii or the Aleuts of the Aleutian Islands.

Many of these cultures have strong animist traditions that even consider sea otters to be kin to humans.

Many anthropologists attribute this to the sea otter's seemingly human-like behaviors.

Oh, are you waving? That's nice.

The ability to use tools, even clap, maybe to hold hands while they're sleeping, and sometimes even the very strong bonds formed between mothers and pups.

Fortunately, this is where the explorers come in.

Namely, the zoologist George Steller, the guy famous for naming animals such as the stellar sea lion, stellar sea eagle, stellar blue jay.

You get the idea.

We're pretty lucky they are not called the stellar sea otter.

And that's probably only because their aquatic nature and their very thick fur coat make us believe they were actually a species of beaver.

Quick aside, hopefully you already know that sea otters are not related to beavers.

Beavers are rodents indicated by those two prominent front teeth, whereas sea otters have large conical canines like other carnivores.

Back to Georgie, who discovered sea otters back in 1741 when he was stranded in the Bering Strait.

Now I think most of you know where this story is headed, and this next part gets a little sad and dark, but I promise you there's a happy ending.

Most of his crewmates died in that shipwreck, but the survivors spent the winter hunting sea otters.

They returned to Russia with over a thousand pelts and were able to sell them at exorbitant prices.

They were so profitable that the British explorer James Cook referred to them as soft gold.

This set off the Great Hunt, also known as the fur trade.

The large-scale maritime fur trade lasted over 170 years, and it's estimated that over one million sea otters were killed.

Sea otters were hunted so extensively that the commercial trade of their pelts quickly became unviable.

Sea otter pelts became so rare that by 1903, a single pelt was selling for about £1,000 on the London market.

Adjusted for inflation, that's £125,000 for a single pelt.

And that's because at this time there were so few sea otters remaining that scientists estimated they were destined for extinction.

And this had unexpected and devastating impacts for the environment, because sea otters keep in check populations of purple sea urchins that when left to their own devices, mow down entire kelp forests, leaving urchin barrens.

And kelp forests are vital to the health and stability of our oceans.

In fact, kelp forests support more biodiversity and sequester more carbon than a similar-sized redwood grove.

And sea otters were not the only casualty.

The peoples indigenous to the Pacific Northwest suffered a horrific genocide.

Russian hunters enslaved and tortured the aluts of the Aleutian Islands and forced them to hunt sea otters.

By Russia's own estimate, 18,000 aluts were killed in that time frame, bringing the population from 20,000 to 50,000.

And Russia's own estimate, 18,000 aluts were killed in that time frame, bringing the population from 20,000 to 50,000.

Full disclosure here, while I am aware of some of the horrors inflicted on indigenous people,

I am not an expert by any means.

But I am trying to learn, and I think that you should too.

So if you head down to the descriptions, there are links to sources and citations for you to learn more about this issue.

The Treaty of Fursuit

Thankfully, in 1911, Russia, Japan, Canada, and the U.S.

signed the Treaty for the Protection of Fursuits.

This treaty, succeeded by the Marine Mammal Protection Act, outlawed the harassment or hunting of animals like sea lions, seals, sea otters, fur seals, and really any marine mammal.

It also provided an exemption to the people like the aluts who hunt for non-commercial purposes, like shelter or food.

Reintroduction

With these new protections in place, sea otters began to thrive.

They reclaimed almost two-thirds of their historic habitat.

And reintroduction programs to places like California or even here in B.C. were widely successful.

Today, there are even potential plans to reintroduce sea otters off the coast of Northern California and even Oregon.

And when the sea otters returned, so did the kelp forests, who provide shelter and homes to over 1,000 different animal species.

It is widely considered one of the greatest conservation efforts of all time.

It was unfortunately partially derailed in 1989 by the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Rescue

Even though rescue efforts managed to save 200 of the 350 rescued oiled sea otters, over 1,000 oiled otter carcasses were found off the Alaskan coast.

And it's safe to assume that the actual number of otter deaths was in fact much higher.

We've covered oil spills like the Exxon Valdez in a previous Deeper Dive.

And while it is one of our heavier episodes, I also believe it's one of our more important.

And you can find that link right up here.

But the history of sea otters would of course not be complete without bringing up rescued and rehabilitated animals like Joey, who was found off the coast of Vancouver Island in 2020.

Joey

If you're unfamiliar with Joey, don't worry.

I've set it up so that the video recommended to you at the end of this feed will be Joey's rescue and rehab story.

But for now, just know that he has engaged thousands of people across the globe in inspired conservation efforts for his species.

Oh!

Oh!

Countless sea otters are rescued every year by amazing facilities like the Alaska Sea Life Center or Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Some of these rescues, especially at Monterey Bay Aquarium, are even reintroduced back into their wild populations.

And those that are not able to be released, like the eight otters that I work with, become important ambassadors for their species at zoos and aquariums to help raise awareness about this amazing species and what we can do to help them out.

Have a good night.

And that's what we're trying to do with this channel.

So if you want to help boost that and the algorithm, you can hit that like.

Even better, drop a comment down below and head down to the descriptions for ways that you can help support the channel.

And I'll see you next time on A Deeper Dive.

Deeper Dive

A Deeper Dive

A Deeper Dive

A Deeper Dive