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Welcome Back, Otter! Ban On Otters Lifted in SoCal
(Photo by TheRocky41 via Shutterstock)
Otters are once again allowed to swim freely in the waters of Southern California once again.
Twenty-five years ago otter were banned from swimming in Southern California below Point Conception in Santa Barbara County—with the exception of a colony at San Nicolas Island. Any stray otters were actually transported back up to waters in Northern California. You can guess how well that worked out. Otters continued to stray from San Nicolas and others wandered South.
Steve Shimek, executive director of The Otter Project told the Santa Cruz Sentinel, "Trying to tell a marine mammal to stay on one side of an imaginary line across the water was a dumb idea."
But for years commercial fishers, oil interests and the Navy objected to any plans to bring otters back south where they could compete for resources or get in the way of offshore development. In 2001, the federal government announced that they wouldn't enforce the ban, but otters still weren't protected if they drift south. Two groups sued the federal government to lift the ban completely, arguing that it was necessary for the species to recover.
Shimek told the Sentinel the change in policy "will not only protect sea otters from harm, but because of the otters' critical role in the environment, it will also help restore our local ocean ecosystem."
One year ago, Congress voted to defund public media, eliminating a critical $1.7 million from our budget every year going forward. But they couldn’t silence us, and we’re not going anywhere. LAist is now 100% community funded and that means we’re taking our future into our own hands and turning to you to keep local reporting strong.
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You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
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