4.4 Future Work
It is important for managers to consider the whole ecosystem and not
only focus on each single species individually. Because sea otters are
removing biomass similar to a fishery, their impact on invertebrate prey
should be considered in management strategies. It is also important to
incorporate how sea otters prioritize and change their diets; for
example, this study showed that sea otters increase their sea cucumber
consumption in the summer months. Currently, there is a lack of
invertebrate surveys to assess current population levels. Dungeness
crabs, butter clams, and other subsistence bivalves like cockles are not
surveyed. Creating a complete ecosystem level management for the Alaska
nearshore system with subsistence foods surveyed would account for the
needs of people both local and commercial fishing, as well as the health
of the ecosystem.
Within our study area only three aerial surveys were conducted over a
30-year period to estimate the sea otter abundance and geographic range
. More fine-scale outcomes of sea otter diet changes were not possible
because of the long gaps in population data. More frequent range-wide
surveys are needed to better understand the population size and
distribution. The current Southeast Alaska population movements and
growth rates are currently estimated on surveys that were conducted a
decade ago .