Species recovery and recolonization of past habitats: lessons for science and conservation from sea otters in estuaries
The original post on Otter assisted migration is here
There is a new paper out on Otter assisted migration!
https://peerj.com/articles/8100/
Species recovery and recolonization of past habitats: lessons for science and conservation from sea otters in estuaries
From reading this article is the fascinating conclusion that Otter is really native to bays and sloughs San Diego County does have some limited Sloughs such as Famosa Slough. This slough is in proximity to the Point Loma Kelp beds. Could Otters learn to travel between the two?
Now to our takeaways to the Paper by B Hughes Et al There is historical and archeological evidence that a midden of an ancient cast of kitchen waste off of Emeryville California.Lots of Otter Bones from hunted Otter. So this study group suggests the bay area was and can be again home to thousands of Sea Otter.
Emeryville and the Larkspur landing could be the sites of public transport Otter spotting tourism? Ditto Sausalito
Larkspur landing has a hot spot of seagrass and some salt marsh this could encourage Golden gate Ferry passenger loads to increase.
It appears from the paper that female sea otters rarely travel more them 15 kilometers from there territories so we would be best served by capturing female otters from Elkhorn Slough since they are acclimatized to that Biome then supplement those with recuperated otters from the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito. Those animals are certainly from only the Kelp environment and would need acclimation to the bay environment
Yellow Dragon, a mission to repurpose existing ideas into new ideas 