How Otters Are Saving Earth’s Underwater Forests
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- Опубликовано: 11 сен 2024
- Hidden beneath the surface of our coastal seas are towering forests - of kelp. These underwater ecosystems are as crucial to our environment as their land-based counterparts. We’ll explore them alongside conservationists who are working to restore these threatened habitats. We'll also meet some adorable sea otters and learn about the role they play in maintaining the balance in this sensitive environment.
Hosted by Joe Hanson from Be Smart, Overview uses stunning 4k drone footage to reveal the natural and human made marvels shaping our planet--from a 10,000-foot view--literally.
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I've been to Morro Bay and saw otters raising babies.
So precious.
We can't afford to let them go.
You should see what they do to make those babies
I'm from the Midwest and live in LA yeah I'm seeing Leo career State Park and I've been to Morro Bay but I haven't been to Monterey Bay and really that's all I want to do I want to snorkel and learn how to kayak and swim and take photos and it's literally all I want.
I don't know if the Pacific serve learner goes up and down and stops at stops from Burbank to Monterey Bay but if it does I would like to take it.
But we need to think of all animals and wildlife like this.
Also kelp is a huge help reducing coastal erosion. They had a similar problem in the island chains of Alaska. Besides the erosion the fish population was very low. The busted butt, brought the otter back and the forests started growing and the fish rebounded.
They detonated a nuclear bomb up there. They relocated some of the otters before they set it off. the urchins killed the kelp there, too, and they started to reintroduce them to try and bring the ecosystem back.
@@shihtzusrule9115 ahh, I didn't remember why that ecosystem was screwed up.
My heart is broken at hearing that 96% of the kelp forest from the California coast has been lost 😢
And that is why the work of the Monterey Bay aquarium helping the sea otters is that much more important let alone larger re-introductions.
Aside from what needs to be done, see otters should definitely be a California icon for their importance.
We also harvest kelp for food. I eat kelp for the Iodine. I am allergic to Iodine and every so often I buy kelp. Not that much or I break out. According to the book of Revelation, God is going to recreate Earth. Hoping no more allergies.
Haida gwaii has been released back into the hands of its traditional caretakers. There are many otters and kelp forests there still and now perhaps they too will spread.
Southern sea otters (the ones in the video) are only found in California. There are two other subspecies of sea otter - Northern sea otters (range from Washington coast up through Alaska) and Russian sea otters (their range is Russia down to Japan) Those populations are larger, in the thousands - but Southern sea otters in the wild are only around 3,000. And their range is limited - mostly central California. They have rebounded from almost being wiped out from the fur trade of the 18th-19th centuries, but it took a long time, plus federal protections like the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act made a big difference. But their population is still fragile and anything like an oil spill or disease could wipe them out.
@@scraller and that is what makes the Monterey Bay aquarium’s work that much more important. I got to see the sea otters last memorial Day weekend with my family visiting the area.
Honestly crazy how perfectly Otters evolved to trigger our sense of cuteness. like dogs did it on purpose but otters? pure coincidence
i feel the same way about harbor (and other) seals
@Joe Hanson - your presentation of the relationships between kelp, sea urchins and otters 🦦- was fabulous. I love the optimistic joy in your description.
I’m more fatalistic and pessimistic- and, still hold a small ember of hope for meaningful change during my grandkids lifetimes.
Kudos to all the conservationists, scientists and many others helping to restore the funtion of this planet. More and more people now realize the damage cause by human greed which is still ongoing and working to reverse the damage
That's so heartbreaking to hear how much Kelp forest we've lost. 😢 I really hope the west coast steps up their efforts.
would you be willing to pay a tax to try and correct what humans have damaged over the years and restore the ecosystems? would you vote for politicians who made something like this an issue? Not just focus on the stock market, economy and immigration?
@@shihtzusrule9115 Yes if those same politicians did something to help redistribute wealth away from the rich back to working people
One of the causes people can donate to on the California state tax return is a sea otter restoration fund. There’s also a sea otter California DMV vanity plate.
They gotta step up now. These otters need to be saved.
Ive been there! Seeing otters living their best life is great
I love exploring these underwater forests. Such a cool video!!
When I was in my early 30's, I got my PADI certification, and over the next few years, did many dives in kelp forests along the central coast from Big Sur to Fort Bragg. On a day with good visibility, those kelp dives were among the most amazing I ever did.
Interesting to see another angle of attack on the urchin problem. I can't recall now if it's north California or further up into the Pacific Northwest but I remember hearing about folks making steps towards harvesting urchins - not so much a deliberate overharvest, but an attempt to gather in LOTS of the creatures, take them OUT of that environment, then bring 'em inland and essentially fatten them up for human use as food. And that's not the only thing happening along the Pacific coast. It's good to know that there ARE people taking this seriously - I just hope we can also get policy makers involved in a way that promotes sustainability and restoration of habitat.
There's been programs where they certify divers to carry a hammer and go smash as many urchins as they can in urchin barrens. They do it all. That actually turned out to be hindering the effort though, not helping, as the urchins would eat their fallen comrades and just get bigger. Whoooooo knows, maybe the otters aren't a keystone species (which is actually scientifically proven at this point, depending on who you ask), and they're actually PLANTING the kelp 😮
Thanks for the efforts for reviving them back.
I love how you showed both sides of the conservation effort.
Wow. Not only are we regenerating our land, but now we are regenerating the ocean. Awesome!
Thanks for trying to save the kelp forest, save the otter, God bless your work, amen, save the world, great job
Otters are indeed the cutest animals ever!
Except when they breed forced gang-style
This was the best video ever by PBS Terra
This ties in well with the other Nature series on the Maine sea coast, and their efforts.
Thank you for bringing attention and educating us on this situation, and showing what is being done to help fix things.
🦦🦦🦦Go Otters! Help save the kelp forests of California!! Oregon too!👏👏👏
*_”Here comes grandpa with an otter”_*
~~ Abraham Jebediah Simpson II
I recall a global vote for cutest animal, about 10 or 15 yrs ago and the otter won, hands down. (Otter be a pun in that, otters having hands and all.)
Otters and Beavers out here trying to save the environment more than some humans.
*_”Here comes grandpa with an otter”_*
~~ Abraham Jebediah Simpson II
One of my favorite childhood memories is of a beach day with my mom, she was ‘popping’ the balls on kelp and it grossed me out while making us laugh hysterically… this was 50+ years ago, when the tide left kelp on shore all along the coast. It used to be abundant. So sad to realize what’s been lost.😢
Great video. Thank you.
Love the work they are doing.
Unfortunately it takes a lot of sea otters to protect kelp because otters don't like urchins very much. So it's only when their preferred prey, like abalone, have been reduced by other otters that they feed on urchins.
96% of that kelp forest is gone????!!?!! God
It's disgusting isn't it...Cheers from New Zealand
Yeah that number blew me away as well... Not surprising though, it's California🙄
@@DMTrance87this trend is worldwide, nature is dying
It is my understanding that the dearth of the "Crown of Thorns Starfish" is a major factor in the explosion of Sea Urchin populations. Sea Otters are only a piece of the puzzle. The Kelp forest needs the "Crown of Thorns Starfosh" to be repopulated.
The starfish became the major predator after the otter were already nearly wiped out; they do discuss this in the video.
The video covers otters were primary, then wiped out, next starfish took over, and died of disease.
I wonder if overpopulation of starfish facilitated the disease that caused starfish to break apart and die out?
Crown-of-thorns is a tropical sea star that feeds on corals; the sunflower star is the California predator that feasts on urchins.
@@kpetersonkpeterson6712yeah i was so confused about this convo because we dont want no more thorned starfish, just sunflower 🌻
9:35 the awkward turn around lol
I really wish the Terra shows (Deep Look, Orverview, ect) who do a lot of stuff in California (cus thats where they're based I guess) would look North of the 42 parallel to Oregon and Washington.
Kelp forests up here have been decimeted too, but unlike in the Salish Sea, or in California where Sea Otters, however slowly, have been reintroduced, the same efforts up here havent worked as well.
Its a different version of the same story, and one thats worth telling.
Contact your congressional representatives! I bet that Terra focuses on CA because of the Monterey Aquarium. Congress can get more money to your state universities!
3:02 where’s George and Gracie? 😂🖖
I think Tasmania lost its kelp forest. Urchins that previously couldn't survive the cold water got established due to a slightly warmer ocean. Maybe they can reseed, but only if they can find a predator for the urchins.
Hats off to them..these people are really working hard
Thank you for all helping in these endeavors!! ❤
Ooni anyone?
Normally an expensive delicacy, it could be a cheap treat until balance is restored.
Uni. But yes
“Putting a piece of hope out” I love that.
Love this stretch of coastline, Monterey Bay is one of my favorite places in the world. Getting to kayak among dozens of otters in Elkhorn Slough was amazing, although we had to backpedal a lot because state law requires us to stay 30 ft away from any otters.
“DONT call them PLANTS” “These are the trees of underwater forests ” 🤓 “underwater PLANT eaters like sea urchins”
i call em babadoos
As one who challenged the waters and was certified by NASDS at 14 years, I enjoyed the kelp. I enjoyed a lot of things that are no longer there.
Love Rosa, the best sea otter mama to ever live. Enjoy the sea food great sea food buffet in the sky :)
RIP Rosa D:
o7
I love the coast around the Big River... amazing water and wildlife
There's an episode of Octonauts about this! Such a pity to hear the forest has declined so much though
Video starts: awww cute!, Video Mid: horrifying news, Video End: maybe some hope?
🎶Kelp: I need somebody!🎶
*_”Here comes grandpa with an otter”_*
~~ Abraham Jebediah Simpson II
_(🎶How could I dance with her mother, when I saw her dancing bare?🎵)_
_(P.S. re: Abraham Jebediah "Grampa" Simpson II..... Just like Sir Paul's grandfather, he's a clean old man.)_
Otters were hunted for the euroean fur trade long before european settlers arrived in numbers. Native people were a significant part of that economic web long before that. There is a direct line from the beaver wars to the extinction of beavers and the almost extinction of otters in the west.
We otter save them!
I bet you just said that for the halibut.
CA, OR, and WA need sponsoring and support agencies for urchin fisheries - and sell the product to domestic and foreign retailers. This allows translocations of northern kelp bed nurseries for restoration of kelp beds along the coastlines, ... and re-establish scattered sea otter populations.
I am not an ecologist, tree hugger, or wild lover of animals - just a pragmatist.
Man removed the "predators" in the wild, and distorted the entire working ecology of the system.
- They destroyed the wolf population, having the elk and deer populations skyrocket, decimating the young forest saplings near the rivers, creating greater flash floodings and erosions of river banks and flood channels.
- They destroyed the beaver population, who built the valley, ravine, and canyon dams stopping floodings, and allowing the growth of riparian woodlands (that the deer and elk munched on versus the beavers caretaking and harvesting their own river forests).
- They destroyed the sea otters, who removed the sea urchins, that kept the ocean kelp beds intact, preventing coastal shoreline erosion and transmigration of sea sands, creating greater wind, water, and weather decimation of the land.
- They destroyed the river otters, who controlled invasive species (lampreys, suckerfish, etc.), who destroyed the fishery populations.
- They overharvested to decimation the local timber forests, creating greater flood and landslide situations.
- They overharvested to decimation the local fishery populations, creating other river, creek, and stream populations that controlled the water insect populations.
- Restore the wolf populations, keeping the deer and elk populations under control, recreating the needed riparian forest zones.
- Restore the river and sea otter populations, keeping the invasive species and sea urchins under control, restoring the clean waters, kelp beds of the coastline, and local fishery populations.
- Restore the beaver population, in tandem with the wolves, recreating the needed riparian forest zones, that also protected the fishery populations.
- Restore the riparian forest zones around the waterways, saving the waterways, and downstream watershed geology and ecology.
- Restore the fishery populations, keeping the waterways clean and intact.
- Stop overharvesting of the timber forests, with proper maintenance, forest duff and fire-prone situations.
- Stop overharvesting of the fisheries.
- Also support the enhancement and population restorations of purple martins (swallows), bats, raptors, bluebirds, tweeties, ... controlling the daytime and night time populations of flies, biting flies, mosquitoes, gnats, noseeums, chiggers, ticks, ... small rodent populations, disease controls within native wildlife.
Unfortunately these urchins are not the tasty kind that people already eat. The species that are considered tasty by humans produce a ton of roe, and purple sea urchins do not. There have been pushes to try to get people interested in eating them, but like trying to get people to eat nutria/coypu, it hasn't been particularly successful. They're not not what people are interested in eating in large quantities.
@@Tserit turns out they are tasty, just that they don't produce the volume of the red.
Marketing them as beneficial to eat, like lionfish in Florida will help.
Capitalism looks for the easiest solution, not the most beneficial solution.
If we can't change that, we can at least utilize it to strategically undo that horribly long list of problem our ancestors created.
@@TragoudistrosMPH They have been trying to do this for many years, however, and it just hasn't caught on. There have been numerous videos and articles and pop-up restaurants and so on over the years and it hasn't put a dent in the urchin population. If it could, that would be great, but so far it really hasn't been effective.
@@Tser people have taken the purple urchins, kept them in captivity and fed them and produced high quality uni.
Indigenous people in Alaska are cultivating kelp for human consumption. They should talk to each other. It was a pbs special with Martha Stewart narrating it.
Wonderful! There is huge potential 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻. We have restored rivers, lakes - we can do this as well 👍🏻
One otter at a time sweet nature
RIP Rosa ❤
Bones for the boneworm
60 cm a day. wish my garden would grow like that. Remember the surfboard stealing otter in Santa Cruz? She had a number, too.
Great video! Otters & humans co-exist in simular environments... an otter called Duncan*😊❤
Go Otters!
Excellent reporting! Many thanks!
We live in paradise, it is us who make it hell at times.
Thank you for this video. I'm optimistic that we humans can fix our mistakes have done.
Don’t forget about the otter excrement that feeds the algae and kelp. 😅
Thank you 🙏🏼
if i could like this video multiple times, i would
I just realized I place food on my stomach just like an otter 😂😂😂
Are we going to talk about sea stars? Hello?phew, finally, halfway thru.
Fun fact there is a market for uni, but sadly people perfer the red ones not the purple.....
Not enough otter b-roll. Too many humans
The sea otter turned out to be a keystone species to the health of kelp forests. I've seen areas of the seafloor overwhelmed by sea urchins and completely devoid of kelp where there are either too few or no sea otters present. Not a pretty sight.
Would love to see $1 uni on sushi menus!
Hey! Its the "Be Smart" guy! Hey Smart people!
1:12
hi joe! i was sent here by joe :)
2:49 5 foot otter?
Personally id just start eating the urchins lol
Otters are Quiche Tone Pisces? That sounds delicious.
good boys
Shoutout to the twitch streamer DougDoug for raising over $600,000 for Monterey bay aquarium last weekend
The natural world has countless systems to control populations from the top down and bottom up. Our species needs to begin to manage our unsustainable practices (through reducing birth rates, re-wilding natural areas, and drastically reducing per capita consumption) through overarching policy and societal changes, before we are forced to do so by resource scarcity and biosphere collapse.
I want views like this to be possible for generations of humans after us to see. At our current rate of growth, that will not happen.
I'm a Central Coast otter lover. They made a great comeback once. Thank you for helping them do it again.🦦😄🦦😄🦦😄🐟🐠🐡
We Live On Land But We Are Nothing Without The BIG OCEAN.
Seeing the aquarium, I just thought 'George and Gracie'
My man looks like beast from X-men before his mutation took over.
i am curious about from where are the getting there fund to carry on what they do(protecting kelp).
We have an over population in some areas of Alaska…can we transplant them?
Wait okay so are starfish being decimated due to the current climate issues??? Seems pretty important
I came to watch otters. All I saw were people talking.
We need restore so many habitats , humans have destroyed so much
Calofornia needs to get rid of Purple Sea Urchin bag limits until the polulation gets under control.
this things look straight out of subnautica. though it could be possible that the things in subnautica is inspired from it as well
They call them the water cowboy's they call the otters of love wwuu wwuu
Are Otters ocean cats ? I love them 😮Cheers from New Zealand
the otters are back but what about starfish?
2:08
2:15
How much damage is done by bottom trawlers from boats? That is a big problem in Europe so how is it in California?
But why are some you tubers showing us otters as house pets
They're not sea otters. Those are mostly Asian small-clawed otters or other river otter types. Two distinct types of otter. Sea otters are also protected marine mammals under law. You wouldn't want one anyway - they literally have to eat 20-25% of their body weight in food every single day to keep warm. Females with pups have to eat more. An average sized female sea otter is 45-50 pounds so they're eating around 12 pounds of seafood every day. The average cost to just feed one sea otter living in an aquarium is around $25,000 US dollars a year! That doesn't even include daily care or veterinary care. Otters in general are not great pets and need specialized care that I suspect most of the YT 'house pet' variety are not getting.
hello
Wait, what? Algae isn't a plant?
6:05 Wtf is that?
its an urchin problem, but there otter be a solution.
The less this guy is on screen the better
Can't humans eat sea urchins as well?
They look yummy!