Sea Otter Conservation

Southern sea otters have been known to become incidentally trapped in shellfish and fin fish traps, posing a significant threat to their conservation. The California spiny lobster fishery overlaps with the range of the southern sea otters, posing the risk of bycatch of otters in lobster traps. A recent study showed that a small modification to the opening of lobster traps can prevent most southern sea otters from entering. However, there is no information on whether this modification will affect the number of spiny lobsters caught, their sizes, and/or their weight. 

A group of students are building two different lobster traps— one with the current design and one with the modification to exclude sea otters. These traps will be placed out in the water to investigate how the difference in the trap opening will affect the size and weight of spiny lobster and the number caught. We need your help to charter a boat and cover the cost of hiring experienced pilots to help us deploy and retrieve our traps for this experiment. 

This study will not only help take a step towards protecting species important to California’s marine ecology, but will also provide students with valuable hands-on experience in field research with direct implications for wildlife conservation. Your generous donation will help fund the boating costs to conduct this research needed to help protect sea otters, an important keystone species.