Sea otters are North America’s smallest marine mammal, weighing just 30 to 100 pounds, but their appetites are huge. They burn calories at three times the rate expected for their size, chomping on ...

In 2013, a sea star wasting syndrome decimated populations of Pisaster along the west coast of North America and along the Monterey Peninsula in California, where this study was conducted. The orange ...

New research led by Monterey Bay Aquarium reveals a surprising ripple effect in coastal ecosystems: the collapse of one marine predator can benefit another. Published today in the journal Science ...

When sea otters were reintroduced along the coastlines of islands in Southern California and British Columbia, researchers saw kelp forests return to areas that were destroyed by sea urchins. But how ...

Chanel Hason gets a lot of false reports of sea otters on the Oregon Coast. "I get email several times a month of someone saying they saw a sea otter running along the beach in Oregon somewhere,” said ...

The giant sea stars, recognizable for their many arms, kept the urchin population in check, with the help of sea otters, lobsters and some large fishes. That balance allowed the local kelp forests to ...

The weathered UC Davis Marine Laboratory looms in thick fog on the edge of the ocean near Bodega Bay. Inside, an experiment is playing out that gives a badly-needed boost to Northern California’s kelp ...

SANTA BARBARA — Claiming that federally protected sea otters continue to overgraze commercially important urchin beds, a group of fishermen wants a Los Angeles judge to enforce a “no otter” zone by ...