Ubaid KhalidIn this article you’ll get to know about the sea otter population as well as how many sea otters are left in the wild. Recently, the southern population has grown in some measure to more than 3,000 individuals. After 1980s, the northern population off southern Alaska has not shown any reduction and it has now become stabilized. In point of fact, its population has increased twice from early 2000s in southeast Alaska.
How Many Sea Otters are Left in the World?
From 1990s to 2005, the population of the northern sea otters plummeted by about 90 percent off the central West Aleutian Islands. Aleutian Islands was once home to around 80 percent of all the sea otters around the world. Even though they are still listed as endangered species, thankfully, the numbers of these adorable creatures have now rebounded to reach 125,000.
Read More: Why are Sea Otters Endangered?
The California sea otters grew at an average rate of less than 2 percent per year during the last 10 years. Thus, there has been a painfully gradual increase in the population of southern sea otters and according to a 2017 counting, these otters are numbered around 3,186. There were about 474 stranded otters in 2016.
Sources:
Doroff, A. & Burdin, A. 2015. Enhydra lutris. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2015: e.T7750A21939518. http://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2015-2.RLTS.T7750A21939518.en.
“Southern Sea Otter”. Marine Mammal Commission
