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Sea Otters Research Paper

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There seems to be a problem arising in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, the decline of the population of sea otters seems to be getting worse and worse. The problem began as early as 1911 “when they were hunted to near extinction—the International Fur Seal Treaty was one of the earliest forms of legislation protecting marine mammals” (Alaska Sea Life Center). In the 1960’s several hundred animals were shipped over from surviving groups and colonies were put in place for the seals in Alaska and populations slowly rose again and reached incredible and healthy numbers, half of the sea otter population was believed by biologist to be in the Aleutian Islands. Then in just a few decades the population has dropped drastically making it the worst decline …show more content…
In recent surveys there have shown to be only 30,000 sea otters left in the Aleutian’s, and in an aerial survey that was done in 2000 there was shown to be a 70% decrease in the population. Even after being continuously protected by the federal government, they still are a threatened species. As sea otters decline the impacts on the energy flow throughout the Islands is very visible. The main thought for the decline of sea otters at the moment is predation by killer whales because of the scarcity of sea lions and seals, the normal meal for killer whales. Killer whales have been tracked swimming near sea otters and soon over dozens of attacks were reported. It has created a chain reaction in the trophic web and is now effecting many, many organisms. The primary producers, or photosynthesizing organisms, are kelp and phytoplankton. They are the foundation for the aquatic food web. The primary consumers, animals that eat plants, are crabs, sea urchins and costal fish which all feed on kelp, while mussels feed on phytoplankton. The secondary consumers, animals that eat animals who eat plants, would be the squid and octopus who both eat crabs, sea otters and sea gulls which eat the sea urchins, bald eagles and sea gulls both eat the costal fish and starfish eat the

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