Species profile
Enhydra lutris
Sea otter
EN · Endangered — Endangered — very high risk of extinction in the wild
About this species
Sea otter (Enhydra lutris) is part of the curated SpeciesWatch catalogue and is classified as Endangered. Sea otters have no blubber; instead they wear the densest fur of any mammal — up to a million hairs per square centimetre — and must eat a quarter of their body weight daily to stay warm. Its recorded population direction is decreasing, so the category needs to be read alongside continuing losses of individuals or local populations.
Habitat, behaviour and ecological role
This profile associates the species with marine, coastal. These labels summarise environments used during different stages of its life rather than drawing an exact range boundary. They wrap themselves in kelp to anchor while sleeping so currents do not drag them out to sea, and often float hand-in-hand in rafts. Its anatomy and behaviour are responses to those environments, while movement can connect distant places requiring different forms of management.
Why this species is at risk
By eating sea urchins, sea otters protect entire kelp forests — making them one of the most powerful keystone species in the ocean. The catalogue records 4 principal pressures for this profile: Oil spills, Bycatch, Disease, Shark predation. They should not be treated as isolated causes. Habitat change, exploitation, pollution, disease and climate stress can reinforce one another, while the importance of each pressure varies between regions and through time.
Conservation outlook
Fishery management needs enforceable limits, more selective gear, bycatch reduction and coordinated compliance across jurisdictions. Biosecurity, health surveillance and careful management of small populations help contain risks that can spread rapidly. Actions need long-term monitoring and revision as evidence changes; a positive intervention in one place does not by itself represent recovery across the species.
Editorial review: 2026-08-21
Threat factors
Known occurrences
Dots are georeferenced occurrence records from OBIS (marine) and GBIF (global), not individual animals and not a complete range map. Up to 500 recent API results are cached; the profile renders at most 500 points.
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