Settling in 07.28

After two pretty chilly nights (jeez, Alaska), I’ve learned how to use the diesel stove, and I have shore power hooked up, so things here are snug, with heat and music. I’m not too sure what the blog will look like from here on out. For today, I’ll spare you guys my adventures in bilge cleaning and instead tell you what I learned about sea otters.

This is what a crabber here in town told me: Back when this was a Russian colony, sea otters were trapped for their fur, shrinking their population to something like 1000 individuals. So now, they’re a protected species, which means no more trapping. And, we've reintroduced otters into lots of areas where they used to live, including this one. Apparently, further north, orcas eat the sea otters, keeping their populations under control, but for some reason, the ones here don’t. Maybe they’ve forgotten how? Anyway, as a result the sea otter population here is totally unchecked, and apparently the otters decimate mollusk populations (maybe crabs, too?) especially on the west coast of the island. So people think of them as pests. But, after poking around on the internet a little bit, it seems some folks think that the mollusk populations are actually decimated by humans fishing too intensively. And balancing otter population's needs with our economic needs is a pretty complex question. So, more later...