WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.568
The magnificent coastal waters
of British Columbia are home

00:00:02.568 --> 00:00:05.625
to an abundance
of incredible marine wildlife

00:00:05.625 --> 00:00:08.208
including humpback whales,
steller sea lions,

00:00:08.208 --> 00:00:11.208
orcas, porpoises, and harbour seals.

00:00:11.208 --> 00:00:13.458
The BC coast is also home to one of the

00:00:13.458 --> 00:00:15.625
most iconic, recognizable

00:00:15.625 --> 00:00:17.625
and lovable aquatic mammals:

00:00:17.625 --> 00:00:19.000
the sea otter.

00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:20.500
With its long whiskers and

00:00:20.500 --> 00:00:22.208
grizzled facial fur,

00:00:22.208 --> 00:00:23.416
these endearing animals have

00:00:23.416 --> 00:00:24.750
fittingly earned the nickname:

00:00:24.750 --> 00:00:26.666
the “old man of the sea”.

00:00:26.666 --> 00:00:28.208
But despite their cute appearance

00:00:28.208 --> 00:00:29.625
and engaging antics,

00:00:29.625 --> 00:00:31.000
sea otters have actually endured

00:00:31.000 --> 00:00:33.500
a long dark history in North America,

00:00:33.500 --> 00:00:36.708
once pushed to the very brink of extinction.

00:00:36.708 --> 00:00:38.333
My name is John E. Marriott,

00:00:38.333 --> 00:00:40.333
and this episode, we’re EXPOSING you

00:00:40.333 --> 00:00:43.416
to one of Canada’s great environmental success stories:

00:00:43.416 --> 00:00:45.250
the miraculous recovery of the

00:00:45.250 --> 00:00:47.041
once-extirpated sea otter

00:00:47.041 --> 00:00:48.458
on the BC coast

00:01:02.333 --> 00:01:03.750
Sea otters are unique in that they're

00:01:03.750 --> 00:01:05.958
the smallest member of the marine mammal family,

00:01:05.958 --> 00:01:08.916
yet also the largest member of the weasel family.

00:01:08.916 --> 00:01:12.625
Found around sheltered islands, reefs, fjords, and bays,

00:01:12.625 --> 00:01:14.916
sea otters feed on a variety of seafood,

00:01:14.916 --> 00:01:18.666
including clams, mussels, crabs, and sea urchins

00:01:18.666 --> 00:01:20.416
It’s not uncommon for sea otters

00:01:20.416 --> 00:01:22.500
to float around in the water on their back

00:01:22.500 --> 00:01:23.916
with their food on their belly

00:01:23.916 --> 00:01:25.958
like a picnic spread on a table,

00:01:25.958 --> 00:01:27.625
and remarkably, they’re one of the

00:01:27.625 --> 00:01:28.875
only animals in the world

00:01:28.875 --> 00:01:30.625
to use tools like we do.

00:01:30.625 --> 00:01:33.125
using rocks and other objects to crack

00:01:33.125 --> 00:01:34.750
open their hard-shelled food

00:01:34.750 --> 00:01:36.625
to get at the yummy stuff inside

00:01:36.625 --> 00:01:38.875
Sea otters require a ton of food

00:01:38.875 --> 00:01:42.041
to stay warm in the cold, coastal pacific waters

00:01:42.041 --> 00:01:44.083
and eat up to 30%

00:01:44.083 --> 00:01:46.875
of their body weight every single day.

00:01:46.875 --> 00:01:48.041
Unlike other marine mammals,

00:01:48.041 --> 00:01:48.916
they don’t actually have a lot of

00:01:48.916 --> 00:01:50.916
body fat to insulate themselves,

00:01:50.916 --> 00:01:52.000
which is why they have one

00:01:52.000 --> 00:01:54.125
of the thickest fur coats in the animal kingdom,

00:01:54.125 --> 00:01:56.083
made up of two types of hair:

00:01:56.083 --> 00:01:58.125
long, sparse guard hairs

00:01:58.125 --> 00:02:02.875
and feathery-soft, super dense warm underfur.

00:02:02.875 --> 00:02:06.666
Unfortunately, it's these beautiful, luxurious coats

00:02:06.666 --> 00:02:08.750
that are the very reason sea otters once vanished

00:02:08.750 --> 00:02:12.500
from British Columbia and Canada altogether.

00:02:12.500 --> 00:02:15.291
Before the fur trade began in the early 1800s,

00:02:15.291 --> 00:02:17.708
the world’s sea otter population was estimated

00:02:17.708 --> 00:02:21.791
at between 150,000 and 300,000 animals.

00:02:21.791 --> 00:02:24.541
But by the early 1900s, just a century later,

00:02:24.541 --> 00:02:27.458
the population had been totally decimated

00:02:27.458 --> 00:02:29.750
by our insatiable appetite for their fur

00:02:29.750 --> 00:02:32.666
and less than 2,000 animals remained.

00:02:32.666 --> 00:02:34.416
Eventually, the sea otter

00:02:34.416 --> 00:02:36.666
disappeared from the BC Coast completely

00:02:36.666 --> 00:02:38.208
The last otter shot

00:02:38.208 --> 00:02:41.708
and killed off Vancouver Island in 1929.

00:02:41.708 --> 00:02:43.833
The long road to recovery for our sea otters

00:02:43.833 --> 00:02:45.791
began with the combined efforts of

00:02:45.791 --> 00:02:48.041
federal, state, and provincial governments

00:02:48.041 --> 00:02:50.333
in both Canada and the United States.

00:02:50.333 --> 00:02:53.083
Between 1969 and 1972,

00:02:53.083 --> 00:02:55.500
89 sea otters from Alaska

00:02:55.500 --> 00:02:57.375
were released in Checleset Bay

00:02:57.375 --> 00:02:59.708
off the west coast of Vancouver Island.

00:02:59.708 --> 00:03:02.166
Amazingly, this reintroduced population

00:03:02.166 --> 00:03:04.708
prospered almost immediately in the superb coastal

00:03:04.708 --> 00:03:07.250
habitat and by 1996,

00:03:07.250 --> 00:03:11.250
had doubled more than 4x to over 1500 otters.

00:03:11.250 --> 00:03:14.208
The stunning initial success of the reintroduction

00:03:14.208 --> 00:03:16.250
led the federal government to downgrade

00:03:16.250 --> 00:03:18.666
the sea otters’ status as a species at risk

00:03:18.666 --> 00:03:20.916
from ‘endangered’ to ‘threatened’.

00:03:20.916 --> 00:03:23.250
By 2004, the population had

00:03:23.250 --> 00:03:25.166
expanded even more dramatically,

00:03:25.166 --> 00:03:27.708
with sea otters found as far south as

00:03:27.708 --> 00:03:29.791
Vargas Island in Clayoquot Sound,

00:03:29.791 --> 00:03:32.875
as far north as the northern tip of Vancouver Island

00:03:32.875 --> 00:03:35.458
at Cape Scott., and as far east as

00:03:35.458 --> 00:03:38.083
Hope Island in Queen Charlotte Strait.

00:03:38.083 --> 00:03:40.166
Today, sea otters have expanded even

00:03:40.166 --> 00:03:42.125
further afield in British Columbia and their

00:03:42.125 --> 00:03:44.083
status has been downgraded from a

00:03:44.083 --> 00:03:46.666
‘threatened’ species to one of ‘special concern’.

00:03:46.666 --> 00:03:48.791
Their continued recovery and expansion

00:03:48.791 --> 00:03:50.000
on the West Canadian coast

00:03:50.000 --> 00:03:52.041
is now considered one of the most

00:03:52.041 --> 00:03:55.250
successful mammal reintroductions in Canadian history!

00:03:55.250 --> 00:03:58.250
But this astonishing success story doesn’t end there:

00:03:58.250 --> 00:04:00.958
sea otters are known as a ‘keystone species’

00:04:00.958 --> 00:04:03.000
meaning that even a small number of them can have

00:04:03.000 --> 00:04:06.125
a dramatic effect on shaping healthy ecosystems.

00:04:06.125 --> 00:04:09.208
If we look back at when sea otters were eradicated,

00:04:09.208 --> 00:04:11.666
rocks and reefs quickly became overrun with

00:04:11.666 --> 00:04:14.333
dense populations of sea urchins and

00:04:14.333 --> 00:04:17.333
these sea urchins in turn wiped out the kelp forests

00:04:17.333 --> 00:04:20.333
that are so critical to our ocean’s health,

00:04:20.333 --> 00:04:23.333
essentially removing the ‘rainforests of the sea’

00:04:23.333 --> 00:04:27.333
so called because of the kelp forests’ ability to provide

00:04:27.333 --> 00:04:30.166
food, shelter, oxygen and

00:04:30.166 --> 00:04:33.833
a nursery environment for a wide variety of sea life

00:04:33.833 --> 00:04:35.750
So with sea otters reintroduced and

00:04:35.750 --> 00:04:37.583
reoccupying their former habitat

00:04:37.583 --> 00:04:40.583
and resuming their crucial role in the ecology

00:04:40.583 --> 00:04:42.916
of BC’s coastal ecosystems,

00:04:42.916 --> 00:04:45.208
the environmental spin-off has been remarkable:

00:04:45.208 --> 00:04:47.458
the out-of-control sea urchin populations

00:04:47.458 --> 00:04:49.208
have been brought back under contrtol,

00:04:49.208 --> 00:04:50.791
and the kelp forests have

00:04:50.791 --> 00:04:54.125
returned and flourished, completely reshaping our coast

00:04:54.125 --> 00:04:56.750
in a wonderful way.

00:04:56.750 --> 00:04:59.333
Despite the success of their reintroduction,

00:04:59.333 --> 00:05:01.833
sea otters continue to face a number of threats.

00:05:01.833 --> 00:05:04.666
The most serious is from environmental contaminants

00:05:04.666 --> 00:05:05.958
like oil spills

00:05:05.958 --> 00:05:08.541
Oil spills are catastrophic for sea otters

00:05:08.541 --> 00:05:11.958
their fur loses its buoyancy and insulating capabilities

00:05:11.958 --> 00:05:14.916
and the otters end up dying from exposure.

00:05:14.916 --> 00:05:16.833
Those otters that do survive initially,

00:05:16.833 --> 00:05:19.250
end up inhaling and ingesting oil

00:05:19.250 --> 00:05:20.916
when they groom their oil-slicked fur

00:05:20.916 --> 00:05:22.958
causing even more deaths.

00:05:22.958 --> 00:05:25.958
Not surprisingly, the sea otter populations

00:05:25.958 --> 00:05:28.458
took almost three decades to recover from

00:05:28.458 --> 00:05:31.541
the Exxon-Valdez spill off the coast of Alaska.

00:05:32.125 --> 00:05:33.541
For these reasons

00:05:33.541 --> 00:05:35.916
it's critical that we continue to protect

00:05:35.916 --> 00:05:36.916
sea otter habitat

00:05:36.916 --> 00:05:38.791
and continue to monitor and reduce

00:05:38.791 --> 00:05:42.125
the risk of oil spills along the BC coast.

00:05:42.125 --> 00:05:43.708
Thanks for watching everyone,

00:05:43.708 --> 00:05:45.500
we really appreciate the support!

00:05:45.500 --> 00:05:46.625
Please let us know what you thought

00:05:46.625 --> 00:05:48.500
about the episode in the comments below,

00:05:48.500 --> 00:05:50.125
and don’t forget to subscribe

00:05:50.125 --> 00:05:51.750
and click that little notification bell

00:05:51.750 --> 00:05:53.958
so you don't miss our next episode

00:05:53.958 --> 00:05:57.166
Thanks everyone, see you soon!