Phofo by C. L. Andrews. Drawing from U. S. Biological Survey. 
 
By C. L. Andrews 
 
The early-day sea otter hunters lived in baraboras, made of 
earth. The sea otter became the most shy and rare of animals. 
 
F ROM the deck of a ship beneath 
the shadow of the rugged cliffs 
of the Aleutian Islands one 
summer day, I saw the round 
head of an animal rise out of 
the green depths. It stared at me for a 
moment, then dived and swam away 
with powerful strokes under water. 
It was a sea otter, most harrassed of 
all fur-bearers, now  one of the 
rarest.... 
This large animal had every reason 
to be afraid of me. Men had driven its 
kind from their once happy play- 
ground all along the shores from 
Lower California to the far Aleutians 
and forced it, at last, to seek the kelp 
beds in the North Pacific for rest. 
Hundreds of thousands of its fore- 
bears had been slaughtered until 
nearly all were destroyed. 
The first sea otter known to civil- 
ized man were taken off the coast of 
Kamchatka. But their skins first real- 
ly became known to the world and 
highly prized when Vitus Bering's 
shipwrecked crew returned to Ok- 
hotsk, Siberia, in the summer of 1742. 
They had about nine hundred sea 
8 
 
otter furs on the little boat they built 
from the wreck of the old St. Peter. 
At that time the pelts were valued 
at about thirty rubles each in Kam- 
chatka. The silver ruble was counted 
equal to about four shillings sterling, 
or nearly a dollar. The cargo repre- 
sented a snug little fortune to the 
shipwrecked mariners, thankful just 
to escape from the barren island with 
their lives. 
THE sea otter is a strongly built, 
web-footed animal, with a beauti- 
ful pelt covering its stocky body. A 
large one measures about five feet in 
length. Its fur is about one and one- 
half inches long, very soft, thickly 
set, jet black, and glossy. When the 
pelt is stretched, or cased, as it is 
usually prepared, it sometimes reaches 
a length of six or seven feet. 
Steller, the naturalist of Bering's 
Expedition, was the first to study the 
habits of the animal and to make 
known his observations, which he did 
in his "Beasts of the Sea." When the 
crew landed on Bering Island, it was 
uninhabited by man. The foxes and 
 
sea otter had no fear of men and were 
killed with clubs and knives. After 
many had been killed, however, the 
survivors became very shy. 
The animals are frolicsome and 
play together like children. The fe- 
male is fond of her offspring, fondles 
and kisses it, tosses it in the air, and 
plays with it. When separated from it 
she mourns and weeps over its loss. 
Steller says, "I once carried off two 
little ones alive. The mothers fol- 
lowed me at a distance like dogs, call- 
ing to their little ones with a voice 
like the wailing of an infant. When 
the young ones heard their mother's 
voice they wailed, too. After eight 
days I returned to the same place and 
found the females at the spot where I 
had taken the young, bowed down 
with the deepest sorrow. Their skin 
hung loose and they had grown so thin 
that in one week there was nothing 
left but skin and bones." 
T HE trade name for the grown male 
was "Bobry" among the Russians. 
The female was "Matka," mother. 
The cubs, of which but one is born at 
The Alaska Sportsman