My nature calendar has the Sea Otter for this month’s animal.  They are just too, too cute. 

The article mentions that they are threatened by pollution.  Here’s the National Geographic page on them–explaining in a little more detail.

~~A side note~ they had the link to the manatee/sea lion deaths on the National Geographic page, so I thought I’d post it, too.  The poor manatees have been endangered for awhile–I used to vacation in the Sarasota, Florida, area, many years ago, and it was a problem for the manatees to get hit by boats, killing them or injuring them severely.

What this article doesn’t explain is how the cat feces is making its way to the oceans…is it the flushable kitty litter that enters the waterways?  Is it trash that contains kitty litter being dumped in the oceans?  It would be easier to address the problem if we knew the cause and made people aware of it.

I also think it is much, much more than the kitty litter.  The mercury/heavy metal poisoning is a problem, too.  And one has to consider that if they are finding prescription drugs in our water supply, it is likely to have made it to the oceans, as well.  According to this, they have made it into the other bodies of water. More here.

Here’s a more up to date article on marine pollution.  Would one say that selfish shellfishers are troublemakers? (sorry couldn’t resist).

As the article states, the sea otters help the kelp forests by controlling the feeding populations.  Without kelp, we humans would be in serious trouble as kelp is a natural source of iodine and other minerals.  The Native Americans would make trips to the oceans (if they were not along the coastline) to gather the seaweed because they knew of its value.  Our thyroids don’t function without iodine.

(And that picture is just gorgeous, too)