By Spencer Bruttig, Nicholas DaSilva, Clinton Reynolds and Alexander Mark Romanov
Sea Otters were once abundant from Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula all the way to Baja California, Mexico. High demand for their fur coats led to intense hunting that reduced their numbers to near-extinction levels
The otter population is now coming back, thanks to the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which provided refuge for the few remaining individual otters. But their return brings the potential for drastic change and conflict to the modern-day economics and ecology of Southern California.
For more than a decade, sea otters were exiled from their historic home range in Southern California, out of fear by fishermen that their return would deplete the profitable shellfish industry. The entire southern coast of California ¨C from Pt. Conception, north of Santa Barbara, to the Mexico border ¨C was established as a No Otter Zone.
The film presents the history and conflict over the otters, and illustrates the critical choice that must be made: whether to continue to protect some fisheries with a no otter zone, or allow this historic predator to repopulate throughout its natural range. The battle continues today in court.
Featured in the Film
Lilian Carswell, Southern Sea Otter Recovery Coordinator, US Fish & Wildlife Service
Steve Rebuck, Commercial Abalone Divers of California
Steve Shimek, Founder, The Otter Project
Rick Rosenthal, Marine Biologist
Michael Harrington, Executive Committee, California Abalone Association
Review
~ "Looks at both sides of the issue whether otters should be allowed to populate the local waters around the Channel Islands where abalone and sea urchins have thrived since otters were removed." - Ojai Film Festival
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