Chapter 13 - Conservation in Practice

Abstract

The sea otter was driven to the brink of extinction in the North Pacific by the early 1900s as a result of excessive hunting. Early laws and regulations that prohibited or regulated hunting of sea otters did have an effect where they were enacted early enough and could be enforced. Conversely, where laws were absent, extirpation occurred. The successful reintroduction of sea otters to unoccupied portions of their historic range during the late 1960s and 1970s in Canada and the United States was a significant conservation achievement made during a period of increasing concern for wildlife species and habitat loss. Protecting habitat has been an important conservation tool to retain portions of intact ecosystems and has been effective for many species. For sea otters, however, most habitats remain relatively unchanged by human activities. Rather, threats such as oil spills, entanglement, fisheries conflicts, and illegal killing demonstrate that conservation efforts need to continually adapt to address current and emerging issues through management of human activities. The Species at Risk Act has done much for the recovery and conservation of sea otters in Canada, most particularly by establishing a requirement for an empirical science-based approach to recovery and by clarifying the obligations of government agencies to support these efforts. Although there is broad recognition in conservation of the importance of species interactions in shaping ecological communities, endangered species legislation in Canada (Species at Risk Act, 2003) and in the United States (Endangered Species Act, 1973) continues to follow primarily a single-species listing and recovery approach. When conservation is needed for both a strongly interacting predator and a prey species and where the prey is of value to commercial fisheries, as is the case with sea otters and abalone, the divergent objectives of conservation and fisheries present challenges for conservation.