A SEA OTTER'S LIFE AT SEA

The sea otter spends its whole life in the water. Its flipperlike hind feet are webbed for quick, easy swimming, and its ears are flaps it can fold back flat against its head for diving.  An otter can even close its nose to keep water out when it dives. Water is cold and, since it doesn't have a layer of blubber, like whales and dolphins, a sea otter has super-thick fur that traps air between the hairs to keep it warm.  One square inch of sea otter fur contains more than 700,000 hairs--the thickest of any animal--so the chilly water can't reach its skin. When the otter is wet, the hairs lie flat and close, trapping air between them for insulation. Their dark color helps absorb heat from the sun, too. The otter grooms itself constantly to keep the hairs clean and separate. Pollution like an oil spill poses a double danger: not only will the oil mat down the otter's fur so that it no longer serves as insulation, the oil will also get in the animal's mouth as it grooms itself.
	The otter's teeth are flat and tough, to crack shells. Its front paws pick up--and pick apart--crabs, sea urchins, clams and other crustaceans to eat. Otters are one of the very few mammals that use tools regularly. An otter will carry a rock in a pocket of skin under its arm. When it brings a crab, for example, back to the surface of the water, the sea otter rolls over on its back, places the rock on its stomach and smacks the crab against it to crack open the shell. Then it can get at the delicious meat inside.
It's not just for dining that an otter spends time lounging on the surface of the ocean. A mother sea otter lies on her back, holding her pup with her forepaws while it feeds or naps. She keeps her baby very close, feeding and teaching it for 6-8 months. When it is about two months old, it begins to dive for food, too. Otters often sleep in kelp beds, rolling themselves in pieces of this giant sea weed to keep from floating away. They rest while floating in groups, or "rafts" of three or four individuals. Sometimes the rafts can link up hundreds of otters, especially in areas where there are no kelp beds. Because of hunting, Sea otters were nearly extinct at the end of the nineteenth century. Today there are probably about 100,000 otters in the northern waters from Alaska to Russia. Another 500 or so live further south in Alaska, 100 along the coast of the US-Canada border and about 2,000 in California's waters. Although they are protected from hunting now, a recent, new threat to sea otters seems to come from a change in the feeding habits of orcas. In Alaska, researchers have seen orcas preying on otters, instead of their usual diet of seals or sea lions. Fishermen complain that sea otters compete for food people like to eat but the otters serve an important function in healthy, productive ecosystems. Without sea otters, sea urchins can become so numerous that they mow down kelp forests where fish and shellfish live, leaving a barren sea floor. The more we learn about Nature, the more we learn how important each creature is.