So What?

Why should we care about the Sea Otter? 

Source: Monterey Bay Aquarium: http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/efc/otter.aspx

         I can understand that you may be thinking about why the sea otter matters, and that is a reasonable question to have. The sea otter matters, partly because it is unique, like any organism. It has a genetic lineage that is all its own and this information is both interesting and informative for phylogenetic research and assignment. We should care about the sea otter because it has intrinsic value, but there are other biological reasons too. If you look back at the current threats tab, and refer to the section on predation,   you can see that through the increased killing of sea otters by killer whales the costal ecosystem changed. This change is occurring due to the sea otter trophic cascade. The kelp forests declined in quality due to the over growth of sea urchins. By reducing sea otters you are changing the ecosystem which could impact all kelp forest dwelling species (refer to trophic cascades tab for more information). 

The Sea Otters need our help!

Source: animalconnectionblog.blogspot.com

This illustrates that we should care about sea otters to protect other species and the kelp forest ecosystem (Estes et al. 1998). This relationship also   influences carbon storage. Kelp forest store lots of carbon each year;  and this is increased and maintained due to sea otter predation on kelp eating organisms like sea urchins (Wilmers et al. 2012). A kelp forest with sea otter predation “can absorb as much as 12 times the amount of CO2 [carbon dioxide] from the atmosphere than if it were subject to ravenous sea urchins (Andries 2012)." This is only within these relatively small ecosystems. In the grand scheme of climate change, this interaction isn't going to have a dramatic effect but, it does have an impact. As humans try to lessen the blow of climate change it is interactions like these that will help to do this (Andries 2012).
      Through this website you have learned many reasons why sea otters are still currently threatened. Although there is more work to be done on defining what people can do to ameliorate interactions currently effecting sea otters. Some of these effects we may not be able to be change such as killer whale predation, or the occurrence of oil spills. What can be done is to limit the stressors we can control. such as water quality. By doing this the sea otter population we be as strong as we can possibly make. This will help the species survive as it faces factors that we can't control. There is also more work to be done on understanding why sea otter populations are still small. Although the aforementioned threats play into this, are there other reasons we are missing? This is a question that can only be answered by further research.  

Sources: 

1. Estes, J A, M T. Tinker, T M. Williams, and D F. Doak. "Killer Whale Predation on Sea Otters Linking Oceanic and Nearshore Ecosystems." Science. 282.5388 (1998): 473-476. Print.

2.Wilmers, C.C, J.A Estes, M Edwards, K.L Laidre, and B Konar. "Do Trophic Cascades Affect the Storage and Flux of Atmospheric Carbon? an Analysis of Sea Otters and Kelp Forests." Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. 10.8 (2012): 409-415. Print.

3. Andries, Kate. "Sea Otters Strike a Blow for the Environment?" National Geographic Daily News. N.p., 10 Sept. 2012. Web. 3 Mar. 2013. <http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/09/120910-sea-otters-global-warming-urchins-kelp-frontiers-science/>.