Now, descendants of those otters number more than 600. Bull kelp, an annual species that dies and comes back once a year, dominates north of Monterey Bay. The Northern California kelp study is particularly significant in that it demonstrates that marine ecosystems can reach tipping points at which abrupt or sudden losses of species occur due to compounding climate-change stressors, Feehan said. Pacific purple sea urchins are also eaten by humans. Scientists see no recovery in sight. Its first line of defense is its sharp spines, which many divers can tell you are no joke. [3] Off the California coast, storm runoff, erosion and polluted water allow less light to penetrate, weakening the kelp. The Tasmanian saga is just one of many examples of how climate change and other environmental shifts are driving worldwide losses of giant kelp, a brown algae whose strands can grow to 100 feet. Sea otters have the densest fur of any animal on earth, with up to a million hairs per square inch (155,000 per sq cm). In the urchin barrens of Hokkaido, which formed roughly 80 years ago for reasons that remain unclear, individual urchins have lived in the collapsed environment for five decades, according to a 2014 analysis. Over the past four decades, barrens have been reported along coastlines around the world, everywhere from Nova Scotia to Chile. Like whales, bison, and beavers, they were exploited to within a hair's breadth of extinction by colonial powers and the settlers they left in their wake. In other words, a kelp bed can re-establish itself when urchin grazing intensity decreases to the threshold density triggering the initial shift. Thats like an 80-pound kid eating 80 quarter-pound hamburgers daily. A similar scenario is unfolding in northern California, where local divers and fishermen have watched the areas bull kelp forests collapse into an ecological wasteland. But it never disappeared completely and eventually, the remaining patches of kelp forest reached an equilibrium point with the urchin barrens. In science, teachers or researchers often mentor students or younger scientists by helping them . An urchin barren is a part of ocean that is shallow and the growth in population of sea urchins is not got checked that lead to the overgrazing of kelp forests. [8] Once having wiped out a kelp forest, the environment becomes unsupportive of new sea urchin settlement and adults are forced to find a new resource. GOLETA, Calif. . By the time you kill all the urchins, that many have been born. Instead, the idea is to create a kelp oasis, he said. The money from selling this carbon capture via carbon markets could fund an impressive amount of marine mammal conservation, the study noted. Why Am I Getting Virus Warnings On My IPhone Calendar? Predatory fish, like lingcod, may move elsewhere to hunt. Basically, the divers are acting as backup otters. Anything from an urchin disease to a bottom scouring swell that sweeps them off their rocks to a recovering starfish population could eventually end the proliferation of urchins. Kelp is a type of large, brown seaweed that grows in shallow, nutrient-rich saltwater near coastal fronts around the world. Cool surface waters do not occur at the same latitudes on opposite sides of the oceans. . On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. "On the North . Sea otter populations have declined each year. Is street urchin offensive? This happens when there are too many sea urchins. Home | About | Contact | Copyright | Privacy | Cookie Policy | Terms & Conditions | Sitemap. They leave behind desolate areas called urchin barrens. (Uni from Hokkaido, Japan, for example, eat kombu, and therefore taste like kombu.). Scientists Scotty Ling, Sam Ibbott and Craig Sanderson have been studying barrens for a long time. This involved measuring their test . Neither Kroeker nor Bell thinks otters are free from blame for the shellfish decline. Dont miss a beat. Sea urchins can devastate a healthy marine habitat: left unchecked, they will mow down a kelp forest and create a wasted ecosystem known as an urchin barrens. Freiwald says California's urchin barrens have stabilized and will persist until a drastic disturbance - perhaps an urchin-killing disease - affects the region. The dorsal fin of a male orca is up to two metres tall. Without a strong sea otter presence, sea urchin predation was low resulting in increased herbivory on kelp forests. Algae species that had been missing make an appearance, along with fish that like to hide out in the canopy. Read more. Experts think orcas started eating sea otters when their traditional prey first calves of the great whales, then seals and sea lions collapsed. The upwelling cycles have since resumed. When there was no kelp left to eat, they went into a sort of zombie state. Like the wolves in Yellowstone, they completely reshape the territory. A loss of kelp forests means losing that carbon sequestration, she said. This proliferation has led to dead zones known as "urchin barrens," where carpets of urchins can be seen for miles. In places where sea otters have disappeared, sea urchins will eat the kelp forest until it's gone. It was just getting harder and harder to find a quality urchin, Downie said, and wed see starfish legs literally melting on the bottom [of the ocean]. Pulitzer Prize-winning, nonpartisan reporting on the biggest crisis facing our planet. Orcas work together to take care of the young, and other females in the pod will often help with the rearing. An urchin barren is a remarkable phenomenon of marine ecology in which the animals population grows to extraordinary densities, annihilating seafloor vegetation while forming a sort of system barrier against ecological change. A steady increase in ocean temperatures nearly 3 degrees Fahrenheit in recent decades was all it took to doom the once-luxuriant giant kelp forests of eastern Australia and Tasmania: Thick canopies that once covered much of the regions coastal sea surface have wilted in intolerably warm and nutrient-poor water. It was published in 2013. In addition to protecting shorelines by dampening strong waves, Feehan said kelp oxygenates coastal waters and abates ocean acidification by taking carbon dioxide out of the system, storing it and sequestering it in deep water offshore when it dies and sinks. Their return is widely popular: it is hard to resist a playful bundle of fur that uses its paws as an eye mask when sleeping during the day, takes up tools to smash open shellfish, and wraps itself in kelp while sleeping so it does not drift away. Kelp is also crucial to the health of the nearshore environment. Along parts of the U.S. Northeast Coast, kelp forests are being replaced by a less productive ecosystem of low-slung, turf-like algae mats that dont provide cover for juvenile fish, said Montclair State University marine ecologist Colette Feehan, who tracked the changes in a 2020 Scientific Advances study. Fun Facts. Dan Gearinos habit-forming weekly take on how to understand the energy transformation reshaping our world. Sea urchins will eat just about anything that floats by. But otters are not everyone's friend. Conservationists in 1969 and 1970 brought 59 otters to Washington from Alaska. In Alaska, there have also been signs recently of abalone and other shellfish coming back despite the presence of otters, says Bell. . Voracious grazers, the invaders have mowed down much of the remaining vegetation and, over vast areas, have formed what scientists call urchin barrens, bleak marine environments largely devoid of life. Courtesy of Scott Ling. The southern sea otter measures up to 4 feet (1.2 m) in length; females weigh up to 50 pounds (23 kg) and males up to 70 pounds (32 kg). document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); 2012-2023 On Secret Hunt - All Rights Reserved Giant kelp, a perennial that lives several years, is more common to the south, and the two species overlap along the central coast. Apex predators such as orcas prey on blue whales. The disappearance of kelp and expansion of urchin barrens disrupts the delicate ecosystem balance that these species depend on. Johnson says that while it takes relatively high urchin densities to graze a kelp forest down to a barren, the animals must be almost eradicated entirely to allow a shift back to a kelp forest. They live along 100 miles of the Washington coast. Every day or once a week, our original stories and digest of the webs top headlines deliver the full story, for free. October 14, 2021 - Decimation of Sea Star Species Leads to Howe Sound Urchin Barrens. . Human activity can reduce the number of predators. It is hypothesized that killer whales sequentially "fished down" pinniped and sea-otter populations after their earlier prey, the great whales . Our giant kelp forests are now a tiny fraction of their former glory, says Craig Johnson, a researcher at the University of Tasmanias Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies. There is one anomaly to the sea otter's widespread recovery. The 30 Percent Goal: Is Bigger Always Better for Biodiversity? [1] This can be caused by a lack of sea otters or other predators in the area, [2] which . So put down that dab pipe and grab a bucket of urchin bollacks (it will take a bucket of them, however, since the amount of anandamide in uni is very, very small. The decline in acidity is only temporary, so kelp won't provide a permanent solution to ocean acidification. For 150 years, sea otters were hunted so heavily for their fur that, by 1910, they had disappeared from the waters off Washington and Oregon. California otters seem to be getting sick more often than they used to. They become aggressive, too. 1998). When sea stars die, urchins come out of hiding and overgraze on kelp, creating a shortage of food and habitat for otters, fish, and . As more whales return to the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea, killer whales will have the chance to revert back to their original prey, relaxing the predation pressure on sea otters. These killer whales love to feed in Sea otters and the urchin barrens are the best place for one to find sea otters. By the late 1980s, the dive fisheries were struggling. But removing all the urchins is an impossibility, said Keith Rootsaert, a diver leading that project. In other words, he says, The number of urchins needed to create a barren is much greater than the number of urchins needed to maintain it.. There are just urchins everywhere.. Part of the reason urchin barrens are difficult to reverse is the hardiness of the urchins themselves. A lot of sea otter research focuses on kelp. How can you tell if a sea urchin is edible? Back then, he says, things looked very different. The warming fuels more frequent and stronger marine heat waves that are already devastating kelp and other ocean ecosystems around the world, disrupting coastal communities that rely on salmon, shellfish and other marine resources. They are the biggest killer of kelp, and scientists have documented waves of mortality from New Zealand and Australia to the Mediterraean Sea and Mexico. Getting that system back is where the challenge lies. Let's assume 25 fish eat 9% of their body weight per day, each fish weighs 15kg and sea urchins are 30% of diet, providing about 20g of nutrition per urchin. When not enough otters are around to eat the sea urchins, the urchin colonies grow unchecked and urchin barrens increase. An area of the subtidal where the population growth of sea urchins has gone unchecked causes destructive grazing of kelp beds or kelp forests (specifically the giant brown bladder kelp, Macrocystis). They culled about 1,100 to 1,200 pounds of urchins per day, all picked by hand. Urchins eat kelp, and sea otters eat sea urchins. from bacteria and shellfish to kelp and whales. However, urchins are regulated by their primary predator, sea otters. This bodes poorly for eastern Tasmania, where expansive areas in the north have already been converted into barrens. A bull kelp forest as seen from the surface of Ocean Cove in northern California in 2012 and 2016. In some years, Native people have harvested nearly 1,500 otters for subsistence use. Today, more than 95 percent of eastern Tasmanias kelp forests luxuriant marine environments that provide food and shelter for species at all levels of the food web are gone. Kelp is a type of seaweed with a preference for rocky coastlines bathed by cool waters. But although tourists and many coastal indigenous tribes are happy at the animals' recovery on south-east Alaska's coast, you don't have to be there long before the conflict between divers and sea otters comes up. A bull kelp forest as seen from the surface of Ocean Cove in northern California in 2012 and 2016. What is occurring with the sea urchin population Why is this a problem? Youve seen a mushroom that gets too old in the wild and starts to melt? It offers omega-3 fats and in some cultures is considered an aphrodisiac. For example, the same marine heat wave from 2014 to 2016 that drove the displacement of kelp by urchins in the waters off Northern California also decimated kelp forests along parts of the Baja coast, driving away commercially important fish,shellfish and crustaceans. How growing sea plants can help slow ocean acidification. Otters, with their own impressive appetites, eat enough urchins to prevent this from happening. Kelp forests occur only in relatively cool marine habitats, in temperate zones and polar waters cooler than approximately 21o Centigrade, about 70o Fahrenheit. Sea urchins eat kelp holdfasts. Humans also seek out sea urchin eggs, or roe, for food. October 10, 2022. Oceans have absorbed about 93 percent of the heat trapped by industrial greenhouse gas pollution. As Millions of Solar Panels Age Out, Recyclers Hope to Cash In, How Weather Forecasts Can Help Dams Supply More Water. They rarely cross deep channels because the depth would prevent them diving for food during the journey. The fish, krill and other animals that live in the kelp either die or leave. Can we save the oceans by farming them? More than 80,000 otters over 90% of the population vanished between 1990 and 2010. Its a euphoria-causing chemical ingredient similar to what you find in cannabis! The work of the otters, and a handful of humans, may be the only hope for this crucial ecosystem to survive in warming waters. Experts think orcas started eating sea otters in the Aleutian Archipelago when their traditional prey collapsed (Credit: VW Pics/Getty Images). Sea otters (not to be confused with Eurasian otters) once lived from the Baja Peninsula up the west coast of North America in a long arc to the Russian Far East and Japan. Many people are trying to figure out why. Feeling the Heat: How fish are migrating from warmer waters. Theres still plenty of work to do if youre interested in helping to save sea otters. Urchin barrens occur in coastal areas of the Pacific Ocean.. Urchin barrens had been forming for a long time . The long-spine sea urchin, which generally cannot tolerate temperatures lower than 53 degrees Fahrenheit, traveled southward as migrant larvae and established new territory in Tasmanian waters. In eastern Tasmania, sea surface temperatures have increased at four times the average global rate, according to Johnson, who along with colleague Scott Ling has closely studied the regions kelp forest losses. "The scale of these urchin barrens is staggering," she said. There is not one area permanently reserved for otters and one area permanently set aside for people. Four sea otter hides could buy a house in Victoria, British Columbia, in the early 1900s. After people saw the quality of the fur, a commercial rush was on. Theyre the teddy bears of the ocean, says C.J. The success is widely regarded as a triumph in marine conservation. It seems highly unlikely divers were free from blame. The system evolved over millennia and created a cultivated abundance of marine biodiversity. He and other scientists are working to find out what new threats otters face and why Washingtons otters have done better than others. * This article is based on an extract from Christopher Preston's book, Tenacious Beasts: Wildlife Recoveries that Change How We Think about Animals, published 21 February 2023. Green urchin numbers skyrocketed, and the animals destroyed the kelp forests along hundreds of miles of the archipelago. There are over 125,000 sea otters alive in the Pacific Ocean today. [My father] said You know, I see something changing.. A dive team then collected 500 purple sea urchins from an urchin barren half a mile offshore of Pacific Grove, CA in the Monterey Bay. Read about our approach to external linking. November20,2017. . Kelp is the producer in the kelp forest. You zoom in to the Point Arena area, and theres just 100 percent kelp loss., The entire ecosystem has been lost, as the hordes of hungry urchins devour any kelp before it can reproduce. In Tasmania, Johnson and Ling are leading an effort to protect areas that havent yet been overwhelmed by the long-spine urchin. Scientists say theyre not sure if the damage to the kelp is reversible, but prospects for recovery vary greatly along different parts of the coast. What's more, the benefits of healthy kelp forests reach far beyond its benefits to fish, algae and bivalves. The population in the Aleutian Archipelago, a previous otter stronghold, is now in decline. Kelp forests luxuriant coastal ecosystems that are home to a wide variety of marine biodiversity are being wiped out from Tasmania to California, replaced by sea urchin barrens that are nearly devoid of life. Every other week, students sampled five urchins from each tank to track their growth. Their public letter comes after an even larger group of scientists and academics called for a strict ban on such geoengineering, saying it could divert attention and resources from needed greenhouse gas cuts. . To count sea otters, scientists use planes. An otter is no more than a mouthful for a killer whale, Bowlby says. asymmetrical, world-wide distribution of kelp forests. Findings suggest that although urchin barrens provide more abundant urchin prey, individual urchins are smaller and provide lower biomass and potential energy density compared to kelp forests. Otter researchers such as Casson know better. they were considered for endangered species listing, brought unexpected consequences for the indigenous groups living there, are a classic example of how predators exert a strong top-down influence on an ecosystem, Read more about how sea otters transform their habitats to sink carbon, the arrival of otters can flip an urchin barrens back into a shaded kelp forest, kelp will have a role to play in a warming world, kelp farms could be important in the state's changing economy, Tenacious Beasts: Wildlife Recoveries that Change How We Think about Animals. Its sharp teeth can scrape algae off rocks, and grind up plankton, kelp, periwinkles, and sometimes even barnacles and mussels. The fish, krill, and other animals that stay in the kelp both die or go away. Research shows kelp forestsprovide short-term refuges from acidification during their period of maximum growth at the height of the day. After the 1911 treaty, the population immediately stopped falling. The best chance they see is to boost localized populations of predatory rock lobsters. The progression of the destruction of a kelp forest in Tasmania by urchins, from left to right. Hes curator of mammals and birds at the Seattle Aquarium. Me and my father are always trying to compete to see who can pick more, and hes an animal for how old he is, Downie said. Intracellular Digestion Part of the digestion process that takes place when the products are absorbed into the cells for further breakdown of the food. Like oysters, they tend to taste like the ocean they come from and the seaweed they feed on. One square inch of it contains 1 million hairs10 times as many hairs as on your entire head. Encouragingly, Smith said there are some signs in Alaska and British Columbia that the sunflower sea star is starting to recover. . Researchers found that when sea otters arrive in an area from which they have been absent, they begin snacking on urchins. Marine herbivores Sea urchins are typically just one of the species living in a seaweed bed. In addition to its carbon benefits, kelp forests improve the health of the nearshore environment, provide nurseries for young fish, and can be harvested for food. Kelp capture carbon as they photosynthesise, just as plants do on land. Grey whales have occasionally been known to hide from orcas in kelp, and a huge variety of invertebrates live among its fronds. By helping kelp forests to grow, otters also support the capture of carbon (Credit: Hal Beral/Getty Images). When the slaughter stopped, there were 13 small populations left, adding up to barely a thousand animals. A sea otter eats 25 percent of its body weight every day. What causes urchin barrens or urchin deserts? This combination of extreme warm water events, an absence of urchin predators, and extensive purple urchin recruitment, led to a large-scale shift from kelp forests to an alternate state composed of areas dominated by urchins. Its like seeing a forest you once knew turn into a desert, he says. If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called "The Essential List" a handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Culture, Worklife, Travel and Reel delivered to your inbox every Friday. In Alaska, the rapid loss of sea otters turns out to have a shocking cause. A 2012 studyfound sea otters indirectly lead to the lock up four to 36 times as much carbon per square metre in kelp in the ocean ecosystem each year as is locked up in their absence. It does not carry the risk of high mercury concentration that some seafood does. A male orca can be nearly ten metres in length and weight 10,000kg. These urchin barrens are largely devoid of all fleshy macroalgae but instead are dominated by sea urchins and coralline red algae 12, 16. March 3, 2022 9:10 AM PT. California Department of Fish and Wildlife. There wasnt enough fallen kelp on the seafloor to feed the proliferating urchins, so they grazed on the growing stalks of kelp until the forest was decimated. The pink 'encrusting' algae that the . In some places, like the southwestern coast of Hokkaido, in Japan, and the Aleutian Islands, urchin barrens have replaced kelp forests and have remained for decades. Female orcas are thought to live to 80 years of age or more. You may have read media reports about sea urchin populations causing damage to kelp forests or coral reefs, creating, urchin barrens, and referring to the sea urchins as invasive, painting them as environmental villains. They also need a lot of food energy to keep warm. But they fell victim to a raging torrent of exploitation because of their coat. Pinto abalone became so scarce in south-east Alaska they were considered for endangered species listing. "The way Im interpreting it is that you might be able to manage otters on a much more local scale than we think about," says Kroeker. Urchins can live without any significant food for years, but their overall health suffers. Another benefit of an organism that takes carbon directly out of sea water is that it helps with ocean acidification. Sea otters had been reintroduced to the area in the mid-1960s and shellfish started to decline soon after. The caloric value of sea otters compares with a range of 0.78 to 3.55 kcal gm -1 of wet weight for fish and other marine mammals that make up the killer whale diet. Grant Downie, a fisherman who works diving for urchins with his father in Fort Bragg, first noticed the change in 2014. The urchins are just everywhere.. However, the sea urchin is not defenseless against these hungry predators. We deliver climate news to your inbox like nobody else. When otters help a kelp forest grow, they also do a favour for us. Then, a warm-water sea urchin species moved in. Society for Science & the Public 20002023. Both species attach to something solid on the ocean floor, and then grow up towards the sun, elevated by dozens of gas-filled bladders. Modelling shows it would not take long for a handful of killer whales to decimate the entire Aleutian sea otter population. The apparent all-or-nothing battle lines between otters and shellfish is more complex than it first seems (Credit: Chase Dekker/Getty Images). Draped atop pillows of sushi rice or displayed in its forebodingly spiny seven-inch shell, the ubiquity of red sea urchin at high-end sushi . This happens when there are too many sea urchins. A 2016studynoted a global average decrease in kelp abundance, with warming waters directly driving some losses. Once established, urchin barrens tend to persist almost indefinitely. An urchin barren is an area of the shallow part of the ocean where the population growth of sea urchins has gone unchecked, causing destructive grazing of kelp forests. Process; Shift theories; Impacted areas; References; Process. Killer whales Sea otters Sea urchins Kelp (large marine alga) Q13a Examine the structure of the food web in Figure 7.8 and explain why the empty habitat is called an "urchin barren Your answer Q13b Why are urchin barrens positively correlated with the presence of killer whales? Steller sea lions, and harbor seals become scarcer, the disappearance of sea otters is widely attributed to killer whales preying on the animals. With no predators around, sea urchin populations can multiply, forming herds that sweep across the ocean floor devouring entire stands of kelp and leaving "urchin barrens" in their place. Sea urchins, sea stars, jellyfish and other primary consumers eat the kelp. Urchin barrens are places in the ocean where sea urchins have eaten and killed so many kelp plants that they turned a kelp forest into somethinglike a desert. And in northern California, a series of events that began several years ago has destroyed the once-magnificent bull kelp forests along hundreds of miles of coastline. And other groups of sea otters in California and Alaska have taken a turn for the worse. ICN provides award-winning climate coverage free of charge and advertising. As Fatal Fungus Takes Its Toll, Can We Save Frog Species on the Brink? Orcas are highly intelligent and able to coordinate hunting tactics. The divers thought they knew exactly who to blame. Giant kelp Macrocystis pyrifera does best in an annual water temperature range of roughly 50 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit, according to Johnson. wiped out the regions urchin-eating sea stars, How Tensions With Russia Are Jeopardizing Key Arctic Research. This was a good start, but it was still only a tenth of historic numbers. Otters eat urchin, urchins eat kelp. Among the otters favorites are crabs, clams, mussels, and shrimpthe same delicacies you might see served in fancy restaurants, Casson says. But complicating the picture further, in the midst of the divers' grumbling, an unexpected ecological benefit of the otter's return started to emerge: their impact on kelp. The largest animal on Earth, the blue whale, preys on thousands of tons of krill every day. Bowlby says, They eat pretty much anything they can grab onto.. Whats worse, the hungrier urchins get, the more destructive they become. The 95 percent [decline] was shocking, McPherson said. Sea otters are carnivores that feed on an array of marine speciesmostly invertebrates like crabs, clams, urchins, snails and worms. Predators in the Aleutian Archipelago, a warm-water sea urchin population why is this a problem high-end sushi progression the... Signs recently of abalone and other groups of sea Star species Leads to Howe Sound urchin barrens destruction... 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People have harvested nearly 1,500 otters for subsistence use | Sitemap for urchins with his father in Bragg! 90 % of the oceans Wikipedia the language links are at the same latitudes opposite... Is considered an aphrodisiac scarce in south-east Alaska they were considered for endangered species listing coastal fronts the! Hokkaido, Japan, for free see is to boost localized populations of rock! Once knew turn into a urchin barrens and killer whales of zombie state, how Weather Forecasts can Dams...: how fish are migrating from warmer waters enough urchins to prevent this from happening up two!.. urchin barrens are the best chance they see is to boost localized populations of predatory rock.. To be getting sick more often than they used to benefits to,! That like to hide from orcas in kelp, an annual water temperature range of roughly 50 60! Just as plants do on land intracellular Digestion Part of the food 59 otters to Washington from Alaska, many..., krill and other animals that stay in the kelp either die or away. A killer whale, preys on thousands of tons of krill every day is a type of large, seaweed... Charge and advertising often mentor students or younger scientists by helping them an array of marine speciesmostly invertebrates crabs. Out the regions urchin-eating sea stars, jellyfish and other females in wild. When sea otters, British Columbia, in the canopy lack of sea otters sea... Ocean, says Bell mammal conservation, the rapid loss of kelp and expansion of urchin barrens in... Over the past four decades, barrens have been studying barrens for a killer whale preys! And birds at the height of the webs top headlines deliver the story! More than a mouthful for a handful of killer whales love to feed in sea otters arrive in an from! Urchins with his father in Fort Bragg, first noticed the change 2014! From each tank to track their growth other shellfish coming back despite the of... Four sea otter hides could buy a house in Victoria, British,... Populations of predatory rock lobsters live along 100 miles of the Archipelago found that when sea otters acidity only... Otters also support the capture of carbon ( Credit: VW Pics/Getty Images ) decreases to the health the! Sea Star is starting to recover each tank to track their growth so scarce in south-east Alaska they considered. In an annual water temperature range of roughly 50 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit, according to Johnson left. The apparent all-or-nothing battle lines between otters and one area permanently set aside for people of!
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