sea otters
The Sea Otter has had problems in Alaska, its population has decreased dramatically. Federal and state aid should be put into this development because any element of the environment that experiences a problem like this tends to snowball into other effects. The first step that needs to be taken is find out what is decreasing the otter populations.
Possibility’s for this as noted by the New York Times were a migration, or a disease. The problem with this answer was that their were no bodies to be found, anywhere. Dr. Estes, the head of a research team discovered that killer whales were the answer.
If I were in charge of this investigation I would want to know more about the whales. Specifically, what factors in their lifestyles has made them want to eat sea otters, because historically they had not. Has their been a depletion of another food source for them. Test this by monitoring a whales diet, dead whales usually have residue of what they have eaten in their digestive tracts. It wouldn’t be hard for someone informed with this. Another thing to do would be to measure how many sea otters have been eaten in areas where the water is deep enough for killer whales to get them and too shallow so that they cannot come into contact with them. The answer tells you if and why they are eating the killer whales.
Who really cares if there are decreasing numbers of sea otters. Everyone should be concerned. Sea otters consume one third of their body weight everyday to keep themselves warm. Without them their the population of the clams, and sea urchins would grow exponentially and hurt other aspects of the ecosystem. They would overwhelm and may hurt fishing food sources by consumption of themselves.
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February 9th, 2006 at 2:57 am
The only thing that I would suggest for an AWESOME grade would be to include more statistical information to support you ideas and/or answers.