Sea otters remain a threatened species in California. Despite recent efforts by sea urchin harvesters to reduce protections for southern sea otters under the Endangered Species Act, the species is ...

Kelp forests rely on the top-down pressure sea otters exert via predation on sea urchins. By controlling the sea urchin population, they help manage the grazing pressure on kelp, since sea urchins ...

Can an abundance of sea otters help reverse a principal cause of global warming? A new study by two UC Santa Cruz researchers suggest that a thriving sea otter population that keeps sea urchins in ...

“To see what some of those places now look like with urchin barrens is really devastating.” Another species that frequently preys on purple sea urchins: sea otters. Hatch said that restoring a ...

Sea otters play a vital role in maintaining the ... protects the kelp forest from being overgrazed. The kelp keeps the urchin happy and fed. The urchin keep the otter healthy and fed, and the ...

The California Sea Urchin Commission and Commercial Fishermen of Santa Barbara sought to strip protections on the grounds that otter numbers and their range have increased since they were listed ...

While working on remote Alaskan islands, he found where sea otters were absent, sea urchin populations mushroomed, overtaking kelp forests. He concluded the small mammals were integral to ...

Sponsor Message Sea otters are large marine mammals that spend ... He says there are areas with an over-abundance of urchins — the so called "urchin barrens" where urchins have eaten all the ...

Despite recent efforts by sea urchin harvesters to reduce protections for southern sea otters under the Endangered Species Act, the species is still at risk, federal officials say. The fuzzy ...