Chapter 12 - Shellfish Fishery Conflicts and Perceptions of Sea Otters in California and Alaska

Abstract

Like other top predators that compete with human beings for prey species, sea otters inspire extremes of emotion. Debates about sea otter management in California and Alaska over the past several decades have revealed widely divergent perspectives. Proponents of the fisheries affected by sea otters advocate a balance of uses, whereby sea otters are allowed to persist in limited areas, but only where they do not impede sport or commercial shellfish exploitation. Proponents of the restoration of sea otters to their historical range argue for an ecological balance, whereby the cascading effects caused by the return of a top predator restore biodiversity and return the densities of benthic invertebrates to pre-fur trade levels. These divergent interpretations of balance influence whether sea otters are perceived as destroyers or creators of abundance and reflect not only a very different relative weighting of economic and non-economic values, but also a very different understanding of the economic effects of cascading ecological interactions. Although ecosystem restoration may have economic costs, ecological science has shown that it also has broader benefits of value to the public, many of which are economically quantifiable. As the history of debates over sea otter management suggests, the engagement of a larger section of the public in establishing wildlife policy and a deepening of public understanding of the outcomes of multi-step ecological interactions tend to result in policies that are favorable to top predators and to environmental conservation and preservation more generally.