OTTER RESCUE QUESTIONED
OIL SPILL STUDY SAYS HALF OF THE ANIMALS DIED AFTER RELEASE

By CHARLES WOHLFORTH
Daily News reporter

ANCHORAGE- Half the otters rescued from the Exxon Valdez oil spill died after they were released, suggesting the whole project was a bad idea, according to a study to be released at an Anchorage symposium this week.

An abstract of a paper by Charles Monnett and others studying the spill for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says only 23 of 45 otters implanted with radio devices are known to be alive. The others are missing or confirmed dead. One radio broke.

Missing otters are almost certainly dead because the ottertracking program is very reliable, Monnett said last month. The death rate is far more than would normally be expected.

"These data suggest that, despite the tremendous amount of money and energy that was directed toward the treatment and care of these animals, many or all of the sea otters that were released from the (rehabilitation) centers were not "rehabilitated,' " Monnett wrote in the abstract.

"We recommend that future policies focus on preventing otters from becoming oiled, rather than attempting to treat them after oiling has occurred," the abstract said.

But Randall Davis, an Exxonhired scientist who ran the otter rescue, said Monnett is wrong to assume missing otters are dead. He said about half Monnett's otters counted as dead are only missing.

Also, Davis said the results from the radio tag study may not reflect the fate of all the otters released. He said the surgery of implanting the transmitters may have contributed to their demise.

But Monnett said his team of five workers has logged 1,000 hours in aircraft looking for the missing otters from Sitka to Homer. He assumes the otters are dead and drifted to sea or sank. The radios don't transmit when covered with only 2 inches of salt water.

Monnett said only the healthiest animals in the rehabilitation centers were implanted with radios, so they stood a better chance to survive than the average rehabilitated otter. He said 33 otters that were never oiled were tagged at the same time, and only a few of them have died or disappeared.

Monnett has studied otters using the transmitters for five years. Other years less than 10 percent have died or disappeared. Of 59 otters he tagged in 1987, only one died in the first year of study, and one radio failed. None were lost.

Exxon mounted the unprecedented effort to clean otters and nurse them back to health at the urging of the Fish and Wildlife Service after the company's tanker dumped 11 million gallons of oil in Prince William Sound more than a year ago. Altogether, 357 otters were captured, 225 survived treatment and 132 died; 197 survivors were released and 28 were placed permanently in aquariums. About 900 were found dead in the wild.

Exxon's technical manager, Bob Mostracchio, said the otter rescue cost $18 million, or roughly $90,000 per released otter.

But several of the 50 papers to be read at the symposium call into question the rescue effort, especially for lightly oiled otters which made up more than half of those captured.

An abstract of a paper by Jack Ames, of the California Department of Fish and Game, said prior research suggested that lightly oiled otters could survive on their own.

"This information was unknown to, or forgotten by, some decision makers, or preempted for unknown reasons," Ames wrote.

"In my view, sea otter captures continued for two to three months beyond when they were useful," he wrote. "It is likely that some otters died and that several motherpup bonds were broken (thereby creating several dependent orphans), only because the animals were "rescued.' "

Ames blamed poor communication, capture crews with little experience, lack of organization, positive press coverage, and the high wages paid by Exxon for keeping the capture program alive after the danger had passed.

Davis agreed that some otters were caught that should have been left alone, especially late in the effort, but he said it remains far from clear exactly how much oil it takes to harm an otter.

"I still think the program was justifiable," Davis said, because many animals survived, and a lot was learned. "I felt that we had an ethical obligation to do the very best we could," he said.

Walt Stieglitz, Fish and Wildlife's regional director, said it is too early to decide if the rescue was worthwhile. He said he doesn't know if he would decide again to authorize a rescue.

"It was basically a decision that we had a responsibility for the animals, and we just couldn't stand idly by and watch them die," Stieglitz said.

Keith Bayha, who heads Fish and Wildlife's oil spill otter studies, will deliver a paper today on how the decision was made to rescue otters, according to an abstract.

"It was recognized from the outset that from an ecological viewpoint the several hundred otters that might be salvaged would be insignificant," Bayha wrote. "But because sea otters stimulate such strong emotional reactions in most people, public demand was high. Available data on the sea otters' ability to cope with oil contamination was scant. Therefore, it was decided to proceed and document the effort."

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