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Sea Otters of Alaska By Jenni Metcalfe
Suddenly, Bobbi, a volunteer from Oregon shouts (unintelligibly above the boat's motor) and points ahead and we see about 20 Dall porpoises moving in on our boat and riding its wake. If I lean over the bow of the skiff, I can almost touch them as they ride with us into the Bay. And this is just one morning on the 'Sea Otters of Alaska' expedition. On other mornings, we see black or brown bears munching the thin green grass that edges along narrow pebbly beaches. One evening Caitlin, another volunteer from Texas, and I stumble on a brown mother bear and her cub just around the corner from our Expedition's campsite at Alice Cove. Over the 10 days, I am lucky enough to see 11 bears in their natural habitat. We also see harbour porpoises, river otters and bald eagles that seem to follow us around like sea gulls. But, the sea otters remain my favourite, and I never get tired of sitting in skiffs and helping our principal investigators, Randall Davis from Texas A&M and Fred Weltz (whose property we camp on in Alice Cove), to observe these wonderful animals. We help them to photograph sea otters in an effort to try and establish a means of identifying animals based on the scars on their noses. We also observe sea otter feeding behaviour, and look for habitat associations. All of this information will be important in better understanding these animals and how to protect them. While this area of Alaska has a healthy population of sea otter, they are declining from other areas. We spend most mornings and afternoons out on the skiffs observing animals or taking mud samples of the habitats. But, we also find time to go for hikes in the wilderness and exploratory boat rides up hidden bays. The evenings are spent listening to Fred play his guitar and in animated conversations. Ten days later as we fly back to Cordova using two seaplanes, it all seems too soon for it to be over, and I am already planning my return. © Jenni Metcalfe 2003
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It is 6am
on a cool summer Alaskan morning, and three of the Earthwatch volunteers are
speeding along in one of the expedition skiffs (small power boats) to do a low
tide habitat study in our study area of Simpson's Bay, just north of Cordova in
Prince William Sound in Central Alaska. Already we can see otters stretched out
on their backs, some with young pups perched on their stomachs and others eating
shellfish or preparing to dive again. From a distance, they look like miniature
canoes on the still glaciated waters.
