Alaskan Sea Otters

By Apple Wu
Habitat
• Sea otters live in marine habitats including rocky
shores, sea bottoms, and coastal wetlands
• Typically their habitats are shallow but would be
mainly for a mother and her pup
• Some other places they live in are at kelp canopies or
offshore places with plenty of food and water
Diet

• Sea otters eat many different benthic

invertebrates, for example, clams, crabs,
octopus, and sea urchins. Sometimes even
seabirds.

• Benthic invertebrates are invertebrates that

live at the bottom of the sea

• They eat their food by floating on their back

and either licking or bashing knocking clams on
a rock.

• Unlike most of the marine animals who get

their water consumption from prey, otters have
large kidneys that extract freshwater from sea
water.

• These animals even have to consume at least

25% of their bodyweight everyday to stay alive!
Predators and
prey
• The predators of the sea otter include Great
white sharks and killer whales
• Eagles are also hunters of the sea otter, but
mostly the pups
• But the greatest threats of all to the otters
are humans, with environmental
contamination, and hunting for their fur
• The sea otter hunts for benthic
invertebrates including clams, crabs, sea
urchins, snails, octopus, and sometimes fish
and sea birds
• They also get most of their water
consumption, not from prey, but by using
their large kidneys to extract freshwater
from the sea water

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA

Physical Attributes

• Some physical attributes are their

buoyant fur
• When sea otters are born, they stay on
the mother’s tummy and sleep while
she combs the baby’s fur so it can
become buoyant
• They have a body length between 55-
30 centimetres, and a weight of about
46-62 lbs
• Something else they have are Flipper-
like hind feet with retractable claws for
grooming and holding onto their food
• They have great eyesight, good sense
of smell and strong teeth
 Effects of human
activity
• Humans are sadly always hunting these
incredibly cute animals mostly for their fur
and meat
Sea otter meat  Sea otter fur 
• Their fur is buoyant and very warm because
it is the densest of any animal
• Otters eat food that we humans can eat as
well, therefore, lots of people trust that
their meat extremely good
• Pollution affects otters mostly because
pollution destroys their natural habitats
and have toxic disease-causing parasites
• They may eat what they think is food (may
be garbage) and their body cannot digest it
which results in harmful consequences.
Why I chose
this animal

• The strongest reasons are

that they are extremely
fascinating, and cute as well
• There are lots of reasons why
these animals are so
adorable, mostly because
they somewhat look like my
dog Max
• They are so smart
considering the fact that they
learned how to crack open
their food using a rock and
their belly as a table
• Some reasons I think the sea
otter is fascinating is that
they have the densest fur out
of any animal because they
do not have any blubber like
other animals
Why it is important people know
about this animal (reread)

• Sea otters were once endangered, but

luckily when people started finding out why,
the otter levels started growing and
restoring once more.
• People always hunt this animal for their
extremely dense fur and great tasting meat
(not that I have ever had it).
• They play a role in our ecosystem by staying
near kelp forests to eat sea urchins and keep
them from overpopulating the sea floor
• The sea urchins eat the kelp that shelters
other marine wildlife, so we need sea otters
o help stop it
Thank you for watching!