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Status of translocated sea otters at San Nicolas Island, California

Galen B. Rathbun·Brian B. Hatfield·Thomas G. Murphey
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Abstract

In the 1970s about 1,650 southern sea otters (Enhydra lutris nereis) were restricted to the central California coast (Riedman and Estes, 1990), and a high volume of oil was being shipped through the region. Because of the vulnerability of sea otters to contamination from oil (Costa and Kooyman, 1982; Williams and Davis, 1995) that would likely spread wide- ly along the shore after a large spill (Van- Blaricom and Jameson, 1982), the subspecies was listed as threatened in 1977 under the United States Endangered Species Act.

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Galen B. Rathbun, Brian B. Hatfield, Thomas G. Murphey. 2000. Status of translocated sea otters at San Nicolas Island, California. https://doi.org/10.2307/3672835

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