Sea Otters Protect Kelp

This video explains why kelp is important and how sea otters protect it:

http://www.test.bbc.com/future/story/20140121-sea-otters-our-ocean-protectors

One big way they protect the Kelp is to eat animals that eat kelp.  Abalone consumes Kelp and the otters eat the Abs. I think many here would like to see the Otters eating something else.

Per the article they do eat something else - urchins. Less Urchins means more kelp which means more Abs. It's been a long time since I did an internship studying and tracking Otters off Monterey, but even then it was determined that 70% of a Sea Otters diet was Sea Urchins. This is why the skeleton bones of an Otter are purple. The things people complain about like Otters eating Abs or Dungeness, are only a small part of their diet. Studies tracking the return of the Sea Otter also correlated the increase or return of kelp forests. Where there's kelp fish populations triple.
 I say, save an Otter, shoot a Furbag 

with all the uni collected in NCKA.... we should be listed right along with the otters in being protectors of the kelp forest...

with all the uni collected in NCKA.... we should be listed right along with the otters in being protectors of the kelp forest...

Tempted to say we should harvest a lot more uni.  They seem to be everywhere.  But what possible use could one have for a limit of uni.  Just cleaning them would take forever.  Maybe the sheephead will move north and solve this problem . . . .

Cull them in an area and start kelp?

Sea otters = less urchins = more kelp

with all the uni collected in NCKA.... we should be listed right along with the otters in being protectors of the kelp forest...

Tempted to say we should harvest a lot more uni.  They seem to be everywhere.  But what possible use could one have for a limit of uni.  Just cleaning them would take forever.  Maybe the sheephead will move north and solve this problem . . . .

Have you ever tried frozen uni pops? Pretty good and last forever in the freezer. Ask bigjim!

with all the uni collected in NCKA.... we should be listed right along with the otters in being protectors of the kelp forest...

Tempted to say we should harvest a lot more uni.  They seem to be everywhere.  But what possible use could one have for a limit of uni.  Just cleaning them would take forever.  Maybe the sheephead will move north and solve this problem . . . .

Have you ever tried frozen uni pops? Pretty good and last forever in the freezer. Ask bigjim!

No, but I have tried otter pops!