The southern sea otter is a keystone species in kelp forest communities, acting to increase the species diversity and providing ecosystem services. Despite federal protection since 1977, the southern sea otter population has struggled to recover and there are only an estimated 2,800 sea otters in California.
Listen to this conversation with Dr. James Estes, Emeritus Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at UCSC. Estes is author of Serendipity: An Ecologist’s Quest to Understand Nature and appears in “The Serengeti Rules,” a 2019 film about “five unsung heroes of modern ecology,” of which he is one. Of course, Jim is best known for his research on California sea otters, once almost wiped out, then recovered and now again threatened by marine toxins, disease, orcas and agricultural chemical runoff.
More information is available on the Tinker & Estes Lab’s web page.
Who knew that ponds make music? To the eye and ears, they seem silent and tranquil—except at night when, maybe, choruses of frogs serenade...
Sustainability Now! January 12, 2020, Is Bioethanol the Answer? with David Blume, CEO & Director of Research and Development at Blume Distillation, and author...
According to those who know, we are in the midst of the Sixth Great Extinction, this one brought on by the activities of human...
