This article is about an endangered species of sea otters in California. These sea otters are some of the most researched mammals, but the organizations trying to help them cannot figure out why they are dying so fast. This worries organizations like the U.S. Geological Survey's and The Otter Project, because if they cannot protect a species they have a huge amount of information on, then there is little hope for the endangered species they have been overlooking. This article comes from time.com (Time magazine) and was published on September 25, 2010 by Matt Kettmann. This article is obviously pro otter. The author is trying to raise awareness about the otters situation. After doing a little research, I found out that Mr. Kettmann lives in Santa Barbara, so these otters probably matter to him. He probably also has a good relationship with the USGS and the Otter Project. He may not have talked to the fisherman who are partially at fault for this problem with the otters. This article has a lot of information pertaining to Environmental Science. It talks about II. The Living World, C. Ecosystem Diversity, biodiversity when listing reasons for the otters endangerment. It basically describes the otters as specialist species. It also talks about how the human population of California has effected these otters, as seen in III. Population, B. Human Population, 3. Impacts of population growth, habitat destruction. It also mentions some hazardous pollutants found in the water, which goes under VI. Pollution, B. Impacts on the Environment and Human Health, 2. Hazardous chemicals in the environment. Overall it is a well written article that is informative about the unfortunate situation in the otter community.
Mary Jacobs
The fact that the sea otters are disappearing off the coast of California without a plausible cause that scientists can come up with is very frightening. One could readily assume it does have to do with fishermen, but other reasons need to be considered as well. It is hard to not be biased in an article like this because everyone should want to help the sea otters.
ReplyDeleteIts a little discouraging to know that these california otters are the most researched marine animals and yet we still cannot find out why they are endangered. Otters could be considered as a indicator species and they could be warning us about something that we are doing that is disrupting the environment and we need to figure it out.
ReplyDeleteThe disappearance of the sea otters is somewhat of a sign that we are doing something wrong. Although we know quite a bit about sea otters, the fact that we cannot get down to the root of the problem is frightening and could mean that the sea otters could serve as an indicator species telling us we need to fix something. The pollution (runoff) we cause and the dangers of fisheries on sea otters are so overlooked that we don't even realize that we can do stuff to prevent these problems so that we can help do our part in protecting the sea otters.
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