Part 1: Food fight between SE fishermen and sea otters

Sea otters are considered by many people to be an adorable animal, an important part of the ecosystem, and also a nuisance that is threatening other marine life populations in Southeast Alaska. In Wrangell, many people have talked about the need for better population control when it comes to otters. The Wrangell Borough Assembly talked about loosening restrictions on hunting the creatures last September with Sebastian O'Kelly, a federal lobbyist. Back in May, fifth-grade student Brody Knecht gave a persuasive speech on the need for better population control of marine mammals as part of a class-wide project on public speaking and forming arguments. Most recently, National Geographic reporter Cynthia Gorney has been making visits around Southeast Alaska to write a story on the topic of sea otters.

Today, with the 2019 Dungeness crab season well underway, several people in Wrangell's fishing fleet have voiced concerns about otter management.

Otters by the numbers:

Sea otters were nearly driven to extinction at one point in history. Their pelts were an important part of the Russian fur trade. According to a species profile by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, otter populations rebounded in the 20th century thanks to protection under the Fur Seal Treaty of 1911. According to a fact sheet on the northern sea otter by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the statewide population is somewhere around 100,000 otters. This is roughly one otter for every seven people in Alaska. Despite this rebound in population, otters were still missing from areas where they had once been very common, and they were slowly being transplanted back into their former habitats. In a Wrangell Sentinel article dated September 19, 1968, sea otters were reintroduced to the region via airplane over 50 years ago. The article, written by Fish and Game Biologist R.T. Wallen, states that while the otter populations had rebounded around the Aleutian Islands and Prince William Sound, and in some places in California, Southeast Alaska was part of a "2,000 mile gap" where otters had not yet returned.

"This summer, in an ambitious effort to begin filling this gap, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, in cooperation with the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, moved planeload after planeload of very irritated and protesting sea otters from Amchitka Island in the western Aleutians to southeastern Alaska," the article reads.

From the original transplanted otters in the late '60s, the otter population in Southeast Alaska exploded. As of a 2014 stock assessment by the Fish and Wildlife Service, there are roughly 25,000 sea otters in Southeast Alaska.

"The trend for this stock of sea otters has generally been one of growth," the assessment reads. "Comparing the current population estimate with that of the previous stock assessment reports suggests that this growth trend is continuing. The estimated population size (25,712) of this stock currently is more than double what was estimated in the previous (2008) stock assessment report (10,563). However, it is important to note that the population estimate published in the 2008 stock assessment report was based on survey data from 2002 and 2003. Therefore, we can only conclude that the Southeast population stock has doubled since 2003."

Kelly Bakos, a Petersburg filmmaker, is currently working on a documentary about the Southeast Alaskan Sea Otters. "Occam's Otter" is planned to be released around the spring of 2020. Bakos said that she has learned a lot while making this film. For one thing, she said that she was surprised that many people do not realize that the inside waters of Southeast Alaska are part of the otters' historical territory.

"I've also discovered an enormous range of human emotions or reactions to sea otters, from hate to love, and they are viewed as anything from a cute cuddly animal to a ferocious and destructive force," Bakos wrote in an email to the Sentinel. "It's amazing, but understandable given the many facets of this topic, how one animal can elicit quite an explosive response!"

While there has not been an official stock assessment for 2019, there are community members who believe that the current otter population is much higher than 25,000. Mike Lockabey has been in the fishing industry full-time for 35 years, he said, and owns the Michael J. The sea otter situation is one he cares deeply about, carrying binders-full of information on sea otters and the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and has written articles on the subject. This is a growing issue that he has watched since the very beginning, he said, as he was living in the area when the first otters were reintroduced to Southeast Alaska.

By Mike's estimates there are over 50,000 sea otters in Southeast Alaska. Going off of the 2014 numbers and assuming a growth rate of 12 to 14 percent, which is what the Fish and Wildlife Service estimates in their 2014 stock assessment, there should be about 53,000 otters in the region. However, he said that there was another study by the Fish and Wildlife Service in 2012 that also put the population around 25,000. If the 2012 numbers were accurate, then there could be as many as 60,000 sea otters.

Competing for resources:

As marine mammals, otters rely heavily on the ocean to survive. Their primary food sources, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service, include clams, crabs, sea urchins, occasionally fish, and other forms of marine life. They do not have a layer of blubber to keep themselves warm in the cold water, and compensate for this with an increased metabolism. In captivity, it is reported, a sea otter will eat up to a fourth of its own body weight every day. Their numbers and eating habits have brought the sea otters in conflict with another mammal that relies heavily on the ocean for survival: The Alaskan fisherman.

It should not come as a surprise to anyone that commercial fishing can be a challenging and, depending on numerous factors, a very hit-or-miss line of work.

The Dungeness crab season opened inJune. Shellfish Biologist Joe Stratman, with the Department of Fish and Game in Petersburg, said that the summer portion of the season generally runs until August 15. However, he said that the season could be cut short depending on the harvest estimates made in the first week of fishing. The crab season has been shortened only twice in previous years in 2013 and 2017. According to the department's management plan, the crab season has to be cut short if harvest estimates fall below thresholds in their plan. Last year, Stratman said, Alaskan fishermen had an above average yield, bringing in about 4.09 million pounds of crab in the 2017/2018 season, with 184 permitted fishing vessels participating. The average for the 10 seasons before that, he said, was 3.17 million pounds. According to a press release from the Department of Fish and Game, published on June 28, there was no need to shorten the current crabbing season, and it will run the typical length of time.

While last season saw an uptick in the harvest, and the current season is not going to be cut short, many fishermen around Wrangell are concerned about how sea otters can hurt their livelihood.

Mike "Mikee" Lockabey is the son of Mike Lockabey. He has been a fisherman for about 20 years, he said, and owns the Ms. Tammy and the Rita. According to him, last season's crab harvest was above average because all of the fishing vessels were working in areas that the otters have not eaten bare, which is an area that is shrinking every season.

"Everybody's getting pushed into little tiny areas, you know," he said. "I've actually been all over Southeast in different fisheries looking, and it's crazy. They've killed whole ecosystems on the outside."

According to the Wrangell fishermen, large "rafts" of otters have travelled from the outside coast of Southeast inwards, eating their way through an area before either starving or moving on to a new location.

Julie Decker is the executive director of the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation, and has a background in commercial diving. She said that the west coast of Prince of Wales Island and Sitka have been especially hard-hit by otters. The trouble, she said, is that otters and fishermen are both going after the same resources.

"Their favorite things are abalone, urchins, and crab, that's their top three things," Decker said. "They will eat pretty much any shellfish, particularly once they've eaten all those other things out of the area. Divers report that when they go into an area where there's been otters, heavy otters, for a couple of years that it's completely barren, there's nothing left on the bottom as far as shellfish. Although they are, quote unquote, a 'natural part of the environment,' they're also kind of a top predator."

Mikee pointed out Glacier Bay, to the north, as another area that can no longer be fished because of otters. The elder Mike said that the area used to be incredibly rich in marine life. It was such a good home for the otters, he said that the population growth jumped to 42 percent in that area, as opposed to a typical growth rate of 12 to 14 percent. The problem was compounded by other otters moving into the area because it was a good source of food. Mikee also said that Cordova Bay is another barren area thanks to otters.

Ron Johnson has been fishing since the 1980s, and currently owns the Pacific Nomad. He said that he used to fish in Yakutat until it closed down, which brought him to Wrangell. It seems like fishermen keep losing more and more territory to otters, he said, and it feels like they are being run out of the area. He also said that while last year's crab season was good, it is also crowded.

"It's crowded because we don't have the area to move to like we used to," Johnson said. "There's lots of areas that the otters have taken over where we used to be able to crab, can't crab anymore. So we all end up on top of each other's back. I don't want to crab around town here, but other places I used to crab, there's no crab."

Mike said that it is not just the fishermen who need to be worried about what sea otters are doing to Southeast Alaska. The entire community stands to be hurt if something is not done to better manage the animals. Last season, he said the ex-vessel value of crab was $3.15 a pound. The "ex-vessel" value is the post-season price per pound for the first purchase of a commercial harvest. Mike said the Wrangell fishing fleet made $3 million last season. Four years ago, he said the fishing fleet brought in about $4.2 million.

"That's just the fishermen," he said. "That's not the 12-man, 15-man crew down here, and the four or five containers a week going out of here with the freight. Everybody is going to lose. We're going to lose a lot of economy if we lose that, and that's just Dungeness."

Wrangell fishermen are not the only ones feeling pressure from the otters. David Beebe is a fisherman based out of Petersburg with 35 years of experience under his belt. He currently operates the Jerry O. This year's crabbing season has been going pretty well for him, he said, but only because he is boating about 16 hours away from home to get away from the sea otters. He said that, over the years, he has seen Southeast Alaska change a lot because of the growing otter population. He has been "periodically displaced" from several spots that used to be very good for fishing.

"I lost my first fishery to sea otters, which was diving for abalone," Beebe said, which occurred in the early '90s.

Southeast Alaska has a very rich prey-species buildup thanks to the long absence of sea otters, Beebe said, which is why commercial fishing has been so viable in the area. With the return of the sea otters, the competition is only hurting the stock. He added that sea otters can also cost fishermen in other ways, besides just eating their catch. They are very territorial animals, he said, and will chew apart crab pot buoys like they were corn-on-the-cob.

Bakos agreed with Beebe's assessment on how the ecosystem has changed due to a lack of predators.

"After otters were eradicated to support the fur trade in the 18th and 19th centuries, the marine ecosystem dramatically changed in their absence," Bakos said. "With the release of predation pressure from sea otters, populations of invertebrate species such as abalone, crab, clam, and urchins increased to a level that would not have otherwise been seen. People started viewing very large invertebrate populations as the norm, and the norm included large-sized individuals, all desirable traits around which modern day fisheries have developed and become dependent upon. Had the sea otters never been eradicated, some of those crab and dive fisheries may never have developed into what they are today, and the current competition for resources may never have occurred."

As a fisherman and an amateur naturalist, as he calls himself, Beebe has been involved in several projects researching Alaska's sea otters. He and his boat were used as an operating room to implant transmitters into sea otters around Kupreanof Island, he said, as part of a PhD project with Zac Hoyt of the Fish and Wildlife Service. He has also assisted Bakos in the creation of "Occam's Otter."

In Beebe's opinion, something needs to be done about Southeast's otters. If they are not better managed, he said, the problem will essentially take care of itself. With a growing population, Beebe said that the otters will likely overshoot their food supply and die off. The collapse of the Southeast Alaskan sea otters will be very damaging to their population, but also to the region's shellfish.

"Overshoot inevitably leads to collapse," he said.

To be continued in the July 25 edition

 

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