The sea otter is legally protected in the United States under the Marine Mammal Protection Act and in Canada sea otters are protected under the Species at Risk Act (10). Despite protection and various conservation measures, the Californian population has been slow to recover; a new Recovery Plan by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was currently being developed with the aim of managing damaging human activities to enable the population to recover to a point where it can be removed from the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife (11). There have been several successful reintroduction attempts along the west coast of North America, restoring this highly appealing animal to much of its former range (2).