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| Kids Section: Sea otters are a charismatic species with tons of unique characteristics... learn more about your favorite smallest marine mammal here! |
| Adult Section: Learn more, stay informed, help us save an endangered species. |
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Friends of the Sea Otter (FSO) is an advocacy group dedicated to actively working with state and federal agencies to maintain the current protections for sea otters as well as to increase and broaden these preservation efforts. We wish to inspire the public at large about the otters' unique behavior and habitat.
During the fur trade of the 18th and 19th centuries, southern sea otters were hunted to near extinction. Today only about 2,200 otters can be found off California's central coast. Since January 1977, US Fish and Wildlife Service has placed sea otters on the Endangered Species list so they are protected by state and federal laws.
Currently, Friends of the Sea Otter (FSO) has more than 4,000 members world-wide. As the nucleus of the organization, they enable us to accomplish the many programs and activities necessary to protect the otter and its habitat. Through their membership dues and contributions we are one step closer to ensuring that otters throughout their range never face the the threat of extinction again. |
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Sea Otters, whose numbers were once estimated at 150,000–300,000 between 1741 and 1911, and the world population fell to 1,000–2,000 individuals in a fraction of their historic range.
A subsequent international ban on hunting, conservation efforts, and reintroduction programs into previously populated areas have contributed to numbers rebounding, and the species now occupies about two-thirds of its former range.
The recovery of the sea otter is considered an important success in marine conservation, although populations in the Aleutian Islands and California have recently declined or have plateaued at depressed levels. |
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| For these reasons (as well as its particular vulnerability to oil spills) the sea otter remains classified as an endangered species. |
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