A romp of Sea Otters enjoying their spot at the top of the swell. We're incredibly lucky to still find these cuties clinging to kelp beds along Clayoquot Sound. Their 100,000 hairs per square centimetre(!!) is their greatest asset in the cold seas, and yet they were nearly hunted to extinction 200 hundred years ago for this very same fur. In their absence, the sea urchins lost their predator and were able to wipe out the kelp forests that are home to so many species. Sea otters were reintroduced around Vancouver Island in 1972, and by the late 1990's made their way back to the Sound. As their numbers rise, so too do the kelp forests that shield our coastlines. We are part of the web of life. Here is an example of what happens when we pluck a species from this web. Collapse. Here, too, is an example of what happens when we give our wild places and faces room to thrive. Life. Photographed on the unceded traditional territory of the Ahousaht Nation.