WEBVTT - How Do Sea Otters Work? 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:06.440 Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey 0:00:06.480 --> 0:00:10.960 brain Stuff Lauren Bogelbaum. Here. The sea otters are basically 0:00:11.039 --> 0:00:16.880 the party animals of the sea. They're intelligent, rambunctious, chatty, curious, gregarious, 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:22.160 and they're unequivocally objectively on the definitive shortlist of cutest 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:26.080 adult animal whoever is keeping track of that inventory these days. 0:00:26.880 --> 0:00:29.480 Their babies are also in the running for cutest baby animal, 0:00:29.560 --> 0:00:32.320 which is saying something as the competition is much stiffer 0:00:32.360 --> 0:00:37.159 in that division. And aside from their sparkling personalities and fluffy, 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:41.160 grinning faces, sea otters are also the glue that keeps 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:46.560 their ecosystem together. Sea otters are in the weasel family, 0:00:46.880 --> 0:00:50.640 native to the North Pacific Ocean from California north along 0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:53.320 the Pacific coasts and islands of Alaska and down the 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:57.319 eastern edge of the Kanchaca Peninsula of Russia. Since they 0:00:57.360 --> 0:01:00.440 spend most of their lives bobbing around in chilly waters, 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:03.440 using rocks and things to break shellfish open on their bellies, 0:01:03.760 --> 0:01:05.840 and they don't have a bunch of blubber to keep 0:01:05.920 --> 0:01:09.680 them warm like seals and walruses do, sea otters possess 0:01:09.760 --> 0:01:13.319 the densest fur in the animal kingdom. While you and 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:16.120 I probably have fewer than a hundred thousand hairs on 0:01:16.160 --> 0:01:19.280 our entire heads, that many hairs can be found on 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:21.840 a single square inch that's six and a half square 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:25.880 centimeters of a sea otter's body, but what keeps them 0:01:25.920 --> 0:01:29.920 cozy can be a liability in some cases. For the 0:01:30.000 --> 0:01:32.360 article this episode is based on House to Work, spoke 0:01:32.440 --> 0:01:35.560 with Terry M. Williams, professor in the Department of Ecology 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:39.080 and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, 0:01:39.600 --> 0:01:42.279 and she said the problem with the sea otters unique 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:44.640 fur is that it can't get dirty, so they spend 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:46.720 a lot of time grooming it to keep it clean. 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:50.800 The exon Veldez oil spill of killed more than a 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:53.800 thousand sea otters in Prince William's Sound because their fur 0:01:53.960 --> 0:01:57.720 was contaminated with oil. Our team spent months cleaning them. 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:01.360 The bottom line, though, is oil and otters don't mix. 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:05.080 Aside from the fact that sea otter fur needs to 0:02:05.120 --> 0:02:08.280 be kept clean and fluffable, or else it stops insulating 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:11.960 them and they freeze to death, humans have unfortunately noticed 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:16.440 how luxurious their coats are Between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, 0:02:16.560 --> 0:02:20.680 the European fur trade decimated sea otter populations throughout their range. 0:02:22.360 --> 0:02:25.880 By the early nineteen hundreds, about fifty California sea otters, 0:02:26.080 --> 0:02:29.240 the subspecies living along the southern coast of California, remained 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:32.960 in the wild. But thanks to the International fur Seal 0:02:33.000 --> 0:02:36.400 Treaty of nineteen eleven, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and 0:02:36.520 --> 0:02:40.160 the Endangered Species Act of the nineteen seventies, California sea 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:43.280 otters were able to make a partial comeback. About three 0:02:43.320 --> 0:02:49.160 thousand live on the California coast today. Williams said in California, 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:52.760 sea otters have reached carrying capacity in Monterey Bay. In 0:02:52.800 --> 0:02:55.360 other words, there's just enough food for the sea otters 0:02:55.400 --> 0:02:58.399 currently living there. For the population to grow, it would 0:02:58.480 --> 0:03:01.640 need to move to a new area. However, white sharks 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:05.080 are believed to be keeping the otters from moving. In Alaska, 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:08.640 killer whales have taken out large numbers of the population 0:03:08.760 --> 0:03:11.799 of sea otters along the Aleutian Islands. The picture is 0:03:11.840 --> 0:03:14.720 happier in the Cordova area, where sea otters seem to 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:19.760 be booming thanks to that nose dive. In sea otter populations, 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:23.079 it's easy to see that these fuzzy marine goofballs are 0:03:23.200 --> 0:03:27.240 actually extremely important to the ecology of the North Pacific Seashore. 0:03:28.120 --> 0:03:32.000 For starters, their populations help make for healthy kelp forests, 0:03:32.360 --> 0:03:36.440 the dense underwater jungles of tall algile strands the make 0:03:36.560 --> 0:03:40.760 coastal marine ecosystems in the North Pacific what they are see. 0:03:40.800 --> 0:03:44.640 Otters service every part of these kelp forests. Because they 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:46.520 have to eat a quarter to a third of their 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:50.120 body weight daily and spend between ten and twelve hours 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:54.640 each day finding food. Individuals within a population naturally sort 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:59.320 themselves into specialized eating groups or dietary guilds, the preferences 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:03.360 for which are asked from mother to pump. Which guild 0:04:03.360 --> 0:04:05.920 and otter occupies has to do with the depth at 0:04:05.920 --> 0:04:09.080 which it likes to find food. Some otters dive deep 0:04:09.160 --> 0:04:12.120 and end up nabbing things like sea urchins and dungeness 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:15.160 crabs off the sea floor, while others find their favorite 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:17.640 foods at mid range depths of about forty feet that's 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:22.240 twelve meters, collecting small shellfish and worms. A third group 0:04:22.279 --> 0:04:26.560 prefers to forage around in shallow waters for snails. In 0:04:26.560 --> 0:04:29.400 this way, a population of sea otters can really work 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:32.160 the kelped forest at every level, helping it to stay 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:34.920 healthy and resilient in the way that only a top 0:04:34.960 --> 0:04:39.840 predator can well. One way scientists have helped sea otters 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:43.159 make a comeback in California is by pairing orphaned otter 0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:46.640 babies with captive surrogate moms that can't be released into 0:04:46.640 --> 0:04:49.760 the wild. For the past thirty years, the Monterey Bay 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:53.080 Aquarium has been pairing stranded babies with adult female otters 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:56.600 in the aquariums Sea Autter Program, and the experiment has 0:04:56.600 --> 0:05:00.160 been wildly successful. It turns out female sea otters are 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:02.440 more than happy to raise a baby that's not their own. 0:05:03.279 --> 0:05:06.640 Since it started, in more than seven hundred adults and 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:10.440 puffs have moved through the Sea Outer program. Houst To 0:05:10.560 --> 0:05:13.719 Works also spoke with Kyle Van Houtson, a chief scientist 0:05:13.800 --> 0:05:17.360 at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. He said, in our latest study, 0:05:17.480 --> 0:05:20.400 we showed that surrogate reared otters in their offspring account 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:23.480 for over half the population growth in some areas. We're 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:27.039 just starting to see the extensive and positive impacts associated 0:05:27.080 --> 0:05:31.000 with a growing and healthy outter population. Today, many of 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:34.960 our state's ecologically degraded estuaries could benefit from sea Otter's return. 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:37.920 So while we knew this was a great program and 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:41.640 a feel good story, now we know it's also great science. 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:45.640 There may come a time when you see more sea 0:05:45.640 --> 0:05:48.160 otters frolicking in the waves off the coast of California. 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:52.520 But don't get too close, Williams said. Sea otters have 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:56.560 been nicknamed chainsaws in a Burlepp bag. They have enormously 0:05:56.640 --> 0:06:00.240 powerful jaws, perfect for cracking the shells of clam and 0:06:00.480 --> 0:06:04.120 easily breaking fingers. So as cute as otters look, they 0:06:04.160 --> 0:06:07.200 can be unpredictable and can deliver a really nasty bite. 0:06:07.600 --> 0:06:15.840 Give them wide space in the wild. Today's episode is 0:06:15.880 --> 0:06:18.479 based on the article see Honors are the Party Animals 0:06:18.520 --> 0:06:20.760 to see on how stuff works dot com, written by 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:23.600 Jesselyn Shields. Brain Stuff is production of by Heart Radio 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:25.520 in partnership with how stuff works dot Com, and it 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:28.400 is produced by Tyler Clang. Or more podcasts from my 0:06:28.400 --> 0:06:31.360 heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, 0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:33.240 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.