ABSTRACT
The sea otter has always been limited to the coastal North Pacific. The original distribution extended from Hokkaido Island in northern Japan, through the Kuril Islands, along the Kamchatka Peninsula, the Commander Islands, the Aleutian Islands, the Alaska Peninsula and Kodiak Island, through Prince William Sound, south along the Pacific Coast of Canada and the United States, to about two thirds of the extent of the Baja California Peninsula of Mexico. The northern extent of the sea otter distribution is limited by sea ice. Colonization of the northern side of the Alaska Peninsula occurs, but is occasionally pushed back in years when the Bering Sea pack ice extends to the Alaska Peninsula (Schneider and Faro, 1975). There have been anecdotal reports of sea otters in the summer ranging as far north as Barrow, Alaska. The total population of sea otters prior to exploitation by modern humans was estimated to range from 150,000 (Kenyon, 1969) to 300,000 (Johnson, 1982) animals. Aboriginal hunting occurred throughout the sea otter’s range, and there is evidence from middens in the Aleutian Islands that such hunting was capable of severely depressing local populations of sea otters (Simenstad et al., 1978).
