The Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) of 1972 undoubtedly saved some species from extinction. Others, including sea otters, were reintroduced to Southeast Alaska in the 1960s and have rebounded to the point that they are depleting wild stocks of shellfish that local communities depend on.
“This threat the sea otters pose extends far beyond accessing food,” says Heather Douville, a sea otter hunter from the Tlingit Tribe on Prince of Wales Island, in Alaska. “It jeopardizes our ability to practice our culture, to pass down vital knowledge to future generations, and ultimately, it undermines our way of life. The health of our ecosystems and our traditions are intertwined,” says Douville.
Together with her father, Michael, who drives the skiff, Douville upholds the millennia-old cultural practice of hunting sea otters. To offset the costs of hunting and processing, she started a small business, Coastal Fur and Leather, to convert the pelts to sellable items, because the MMPA prohibits the sale of whole pelts.
Douville has harvested hundreds of sea otters over the past two years. “Lately, we’ve had commercial divers thanking us when they see us with the sea otters we’ve harvested on the dock,” she says. “I don’t think it’s sustainable for me to hunt at this rate long-term as it’s very costly, and because of that, there’s little incentive for others to pursue hunting.”
With the Southeast Alaska sea otter population now at around 25,000, Douville hunts, in part, to reduce the otter population and restore local stocks of clams, geoduck, sea urchin, mussels, sea cucumber, abalone, scallops, crab, and octopus. “There are approximately 35 hunters in the Southeast Alaska region,” she says. “I don’t see any change in the shellfish population since I’ve started hunting, and I’m unsure if our current hunting levels will have an impact. For the shellfish population to rebound, we need to achieve a balance, which includes getting more hunters out there.”
Besides embracing ancient Tlingit tradition, Douville is collecting traditional knowledge and data. “I thought I might as well,” she says. “I’ve found they really like clams.” She adds that the largest sea otter she has harvested weighed 99 pounds and had about 20 pounds of geoducks in its stomach. Douville has cataloged the stomach contents, parasites, dental health, and other aspects of the physiology of numerous sea otters and has reams of data.
"This extends far beyond just shellfish and fur,” says Douville, pointing out that it is about maintaining a relationship more than 10,000 years old. “Tlingit means People of the Tides,” she says. “We have always hunted sea otters to keep them out of the intertidal zone and protect the resources we depend on. It’s about keeping the balance.”
