Bringing back sea otters may help save kelp forests off Northern California coast

You know, the health of the ocean off the Northern California coast is in big trouble. Biologists have seen a massive die-off of the kelp forests that are essential to a healthy ecosystem. But as John Ramis reports, scientists think bringing sea otters back, those little guys, may be one solution. From Half Moon Bay all the way up to central Washington, there are no sea otters and there haven't been for more than 100 years. But there's an idea to reintroduce them into Northern California as a way to repair an ailing ecosystem. Sea otters may be adorable to look at and fun to watch, but what and how much they eat has put them at the center of a debate. Sea otters play a keystone role in kelp forest ecosystems. They're the second most destructive animal on the sea next to man. Last summer, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began floating the idea of reintroducing sea otters to Northern California and Oregon, and now they're holding public open houses like this one in Sausalito. The problem is the kelp forests that have been dying off thanks to an explosion of sea urchins. That's happening because sea stars, the urchin's natural predator, are being killed by rising temperatures. But the urchin's only other natural predator, sea otters, were hunted nearly to extinction for their fur. The idea is to bring them back to try to save the kelp. They eat a lot of sea urchins, and by eating a lot of sea urchins, they help to defend the kelp from overgrazing. And when the kelp is protected, it tends to expand and create resilient kelp beds, and kelp beds support a really huge diversity of species in the marine environment. In many places, the ocean floor looks like this, carpeted with nearly dead urchins and not much else. They call them urchin barrens. Basically, it's an underwater desert in which the kelp has been wiped out. But in a 2013 study, otters were reintroduced in British Columbia, and within one year, most of the urchins were gone and kelp was beginning to regrow. But Doug Jung is an avid abalone diver and says while scientists are waiting for the forest to regrow, the otters will be wiping out all existing shellfish. They're cute. We all love them. But we don't want them to strip mine, and let me repeat the term, strip mine the rest of the coast. Jung says abalone are already in short supply and would be sitting ducks for the otters. They're out in the open where if sea otters come up, they will wipe them out immediately. Then you will have no biological diversity and no abalone. Depending on how you look at it, the otter's appetite is either a blessing or a curse. But as usual, it was man who upset the balance of nature in the first place. The question is, do we have the wisdom to set things straight or simply make things worse? Scientists think the likely place to start would be somewhere along the Oregon coast, but reintroducing otters can be tricky. In the 1960s and 70s, wildlife officials tried to relocate them to the Pacific Northwest, but 90% of the otters either left the area or died.