{"id":20495,"date":"2015-10-12T08:00:18","date_gmt":"2015-10-12T15:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/researchers-investigate-uptick-in-stranded-and-dying-otters\/"},"modified":"2015-10-12T08:00:18","modified_gmt":"2015-10-12T15:00:18","slug":"researchers-investigate-uptick-in-stranded-and-dying-otters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/researchers-investigate-uptick-in-stranded-and-dying-otters\/","title":{"rendered":"Researchers investigate uptick in stranded and dying otters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>KENAI \u2014<\/strong> Researchers are trying to figure out what has been causing more dead and dying sea otters to wash up on Kachemak Bay beaches near Homer.<\/p>\n<p>State wildlife officials have seen five times as many stranded sea otters in the last month than is normally expected, with 200 deaths or illnesses reported so far in 2015, the Peninsula Clarion reported.<\/p>\n<p>Homer-based U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service deputy refuge manager Marc Webber says the otters are probably ill, though they were not skinny or showing obvious signs of poor health.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen this thing sort of started to happen in late August, we noticed that a lot of them didn\u2019t really appear to have anything wrong with them,\u201d Webber said. \u201cThey were pretty healthy-looking, other than they were dead.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Volunteers are bringing the otters to Alaska SeaLife Center researchers in Seward. The FWS and SeaLife Center are conducting autopsies to determine how the animals died.<\/p>\n<p>SeaLife Center staff veterinarian Dr. Carrie Goetz said usual causes of death are trauma or bacterial infection.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere haven\u2019t been any obvious causes of death,\u201d Goetz said. \u201cThat\u2019s been limiting our understanding of what\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Goetz said testing is being conducted to determine whether an algal bloom along the coast from California to southern Alaska is releasing toxins.<\/p>\n<p>Webber said sightings of dead or dying animals should be reported to a SeaLife Center hotline for stranded marine mammals.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s largely people out on the beaches, getting the word out to us,\u201d Webber said. \u201cThat\u2019s critical to helping us know what\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>KENAI \u2014 Researchers are trying to figure out what has been causing more dead and dying sea otters to wash up on Kachemak Bay beaches near Homer. State wildlife officials have seen five times as many stranded sea otters in the last month than is normally expected, with 200 deaths or illnesses reported so far [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-20495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20495\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20495"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=20495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}