Otters and California's sea urchin and lobster fisheries are a bad mix, and fishermen are taking legal action to protect themselves from the marine mammal.
"We've filed two petitions," says Nate Hotes, a lawyer with the fishermen's advocacy organization Pacific Legal Foundation.
"There are two timelines," says Hotes. "The first is the delisting of the otters under the Endangered Species Act. Back in 2003, the Southern California sea otter population was 3,090 animals above the threshold for listing. We have been trying for the last ten years to get them delisted, and the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) hasn't moved."
To provoke action by the FWS on delisting, Hotes reports that the PLF filed a petition on April 24, 2026, requesting that the California otters be delisted. "I don't know what's going to happen," he says. "But they're supposed to respond to that in 90 days."
The second timeline, Hotes points out, goes back to 1987, when the otters were listed. "At that time, Congress mandated that the FWS protect fishermen from being affected by the listing," says Hotes, noting that the FWS set up a no-otter zone south of Point Conception, where any otters found would be captured and relocated north of the zone.
"When the FWS ended the relocation program in 2010 and started to allow otters to repopulate south of Point Conception, they ignored the Congressional mandate and left fishermen vulnerable to the laws protecting otters. They could face fines or jail if they so much as force an otter to change its course. That goes against what Congress ordered in 1987. Our second petition seeks to exempt fishermen from these liability rules."
According to Hotes, the second petition that PLF filed on behalf of the fishermen seeks to protect fishermen from liability for incidental takes of otters. "There was some legal drama fifteen years ago where environmental groups sued over the translocation issue," says Hotes. "We feel restarting translocation of otters would be bad for all involved, but have long argued that protections for fishermen working in the management zone should be reinstated."
Hotes notes that, as far as he knows, no fishermen have been arrested or cited, but they must operate under the threat of criminal charges. Fishermen represented by the PLF want the Fish and Wildlife Service to honor the compromise made with Congress almost four decades ago and protect fishermen as well as otters.
