But unlike seals or sea lions, sea otters' genetic history didn t prepare them for constant exposure to 50-degree water. We humans grow a paltry 100,000 hairs over our entire heads. In their waking hours, when they aren t eating, they re rolling, twisting, shaking and rubbing themselves to oil and fill their fur with air bubbles that act as insulation. That s a lot of clams, sea urchins, crabs, squid and other marine invertebrates. To keep up with otters, we humans would have to eat more than 100 quarter-pounder hamburgers a day.
Sea otters are as smart as dogs, and, unfortunately, as trusting.
Their desirable pelts and friendliness toward humans led to their near extinction. It took about 250 years for fur traders to reduce the 150,000 to 300,000 sea otters living along the west coast of North America, across the Aleutians and Russia s Kamchatka Peninsula to Japan to only 1,000 to 2,000 animals. After the International Fur Seal Treaty of 1911, northern sea otter populations in Russia and Alaska recovered, to between 100,000 to 150,000, although 40,000 have been wiped out in this decade, apparently by orcas whose supply of ring seals and sea lions has disappeared. And the only remaining group of southern sea otters lives here along the central California coast. The mysterious inability of the southern sea otter population to recover has prompted the Monterey Bay Aquarium to make a commitment to rescue every sick and orphaned sea otter that comes to its attention.