Alaska Sea Otters' Disappearance a Mystery

Two conservation groups sued the federal government in December to get the dwindling population listed as endangered.

The California-based plaintiffs, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Turtle Island Restoration Network, submitted a petition in 2000 for an endangered listing.

"We've been trying to work with the Bush administration for three years, and they haven't done anything," said Brent Plater, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity.

The Alaska office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service responded by noting that in September 2002 it proposed an Endangered Species Act listing. That proposal is still being evaluated.

FISHERMEN NOT WORRIED

For commercial fishermen, the specter of new sea otter protections is not yet a concern because no one is directly blaming commercial harvests for the decline, industry representatives said. Fishing was curtailed to protect the western Alaska Steller sea lion, listed as endangered in 1997.

"The industry is not paying a whole lot of attention to the sea otter situation as it did to the sea lions. With the sea lions, there was an implication, rightly or not, that fishing was depriving them of prey," said Paul MacGregor, general counsel for the At Sea Processors Association, a Seattle-based industry group.

Estes said sea otters deserve the same protections as those afforded the sea lions. Sea lion numbers have dropped about 85 percent since 1960, but sea otters are "at least as bad off as they are," Estes said. "And the numbers are still going down. It's very discouraging."