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The
Future
According to the National Recovery Strategy for the Sea Otter:
As the sea otter population recovers and repopulates its
historic range, declines in the abundance of many invertebrates
are expected. Commercial fisheries in British Columbia for
invertebrate species such as sea urchins, intertidal clams
and sea cucumbers will not be possible in areas with sea otters
and other shellfish fisheries will be curtailed because of
declines in abundance due to sea otter predation.
Besides impacting commercial fisheries, the reintroduction
and subsequent protection of sea otters has forced major changes
to the diets and ways of life of coastal Nuu chah nulth peoples.
In many cases, these changes continue to cause extreme hardships
to people who have lost, and are in the process of losing
(as sea otters move into their traditional territories), a
healthy and abundant traditional food source. This loss of
a subsistence, and societal, resource amounts to an infringement
of Aboriginal rights, specifically the Aboriginal rights to
foods and resources critical to individual and societal well
being. Today, sea otters have greater legal right to foods
such as ?e?isi (clams), and tu´cu´p (sea urchins),
than people do (S. Charleson pers. comm. 2004). Some scientists
have forwarded theories about a lack of seafoods in the past,
when there were lots of sea otters on the coast, and the likelihood
of First Nations maintaining "otter-free" zones
around particularly rich shellfish and seafood gathering areas.
Neither a shortage of seafoods in the past, nor the maintenance
of specific areas without sea otters, however, has been supported
by the oral evidence of Nuu chah nulth elders or the anthropological
and archaeological work done concerning Nuu chah nulth coastal
peoples.
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