(full paper is archived in the Miller Library)
Title: Over 20 year stablity in abalone population in an area
inhabited by sea otters
Student Author(s): Stoll, Nicolai
Faculty Advisor(s): Pear
(full paper is archived in the Miller Library)
Title: Over 20 year stablity in abalone population in an area
inhabited by sea otters
Student Author(s): Stoll, Nicolai
Faculty Advisor(s): Pearse, John
Location: UC Santa Cruz Kelp Forest Ecology Class
Date: Fall 1992
Keywords: HMLR, Haliotis rufescens
Abstract: One of the principle food items of the sea otter Enhydra lutris at Hopkins Marine Life Refuge, Pacific Grove CA, and throughout most of their present range is the abalone, Haliotis spp.(Costa 1978). The sea otter and the abalone coexisted for thousands of years in equilibrium (the nature of which is uncertain) on the Pacific coast until the 1800's when otters were hunted extensively for their fur. By the turn of the century the otter population had been reduced to near extinction levels. Laws protecting sea otters helped to revive the population from about 50 animals in 1911 to about 2000 animals off the central California coast in 1978, with otters returning to Hopkins Marine Life Refuge sometime in the 1960's. The otter's range in California has extended to a section of the coastline of about 250 km from Santa Cruz county to San Luis Obispo county (Hines and Pearse 1982).
Observations of McLean (1962) in the 1950's show that the sea floor at