From the 1700's to 1911, almost 1 million sea otters were killed. The hunting stopped in 1911 because no one could find any otters. At that time, a law was passed making it illegal to hunt sea otters and the otter population has since rebounded. Current estimates are approximately 100,000 sea otters in Alaska. Although sea otters are protected from commercial hunting, the largest threat still comes from humans.
Oil spills have a devastating effect on sea otters.
When a sea otter's fur is coated with oil, the otter loses its ability to float and protection from cold. When the oil tanker Valdez ran aground off the coast of Alaska, thousands of sea otters were affected primarily because of their susceptibility to oil. For more information on otter recovery from the Exxon Valdez oil spill, click here . Sea otters are also sometimes accidentally caught by commercial fishing boats. One major problem was with gillnets, which are mesh nets that catch fish when their gills become caught in the netting.