THE COUNT!

Once per Team we conduct a detailed count of sea otters along the entire stretch of Elkhorn Slough. The slough is a seasonal estuary which runs 7 km inland from Moss Landing Harbor. It is agreat place... with over 200 bird species either visiting its shores seasonally or living there permanently, a harbor seal colony, and sea otters. The slough is also an important nursery for fishes, especially sharks and rays. The Pelagic Shark Research Foundation, an organization that collaborates with us in the research, is studying these animals in the slough. Their project will also be sponsored by Earthwatch next year.

To count the otters we take the boat into the channel and slowly make our way inland, where the waters get shallower and shallower and there is a good chance of getting stuck. We count every otter we see, write down its gender, approximate age group, its behavior and its location. There are many otters that are tagged. They are grown pups released from the Monterey Bay Aquarium rehabilitation program. Monitoring these animals to see how they fare back in the wild is both interesting and useful. Our counts integrate with another study, one being conducted by Pacific Cetacean Group. They have been conducting weekly counts since 1994. I helped start that study and here we are so many years later, still running and still trying to understand the complex relationship between the slough and the otters.

There are over 80 animals inthe slough right now. Plenty of work for our team.