restoration

On a blue-sky afternoon, kayakers paddle past dozens of sea lions lolling in the sun and make a beeline toward the sea otters lounging on beds of eel grass at Elkhorn Slough on California’s central coast. The playful predators not only generate millions of dollars in tourism revenue, but their voracious appetite for destructive species has revived this sprawling estuary while making the region’s carbon-sequestering kelp forests more resistant to climate change.

The U.S. government determined in 2022 that reintroducing sea otters to their historic range on the West Coast would be a boon to biodiversity and climate resilience, laying out a road map to restoration that would cost up to $43 million.

But as the Trump administration moves to slash funding for wildlife programs, a nonprofit co-founded by a Silicon Valley entrepreneur is stepping in to raise nearly that amount to finance and coordinate what would be a complicated, years-long effort to connect isolated populations of sea otters. So far it’s raised more than $1.4 million of its $40-million target.

“We are coming in at a time when we’ve seen these dramatic cuts from the federal government and conservationists are facing major funding gaps,” says Paul Thomson, chief programs officer at the Wildlife Conservation Network, the San Francisco nonprofit that launched the Sea Otter Fund earlier this year. In August, a veteran U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service official, Jen Miller, left the government to run the fund.

Sea otters prey on invasive green crabs, which fostered the return of eel grass at Elkhorn Slough.

(Rachel Bujalski/Bloomberg)

The initiative could be a harbinger of a future where private donors assume a more prominent role in financing and advancing wildlife restoration as climate impacts multiply.

While philanthropies have helped fund sea otter work, the Fish and Wildlife Service, which listed the Southern sea otter in California as threatened in 1977, assumes the cost of the species’ recovery as well as funding state and private research. “Sea otter recovery and supporting healthy coastlines go hand in hand, including finding ways to support the needs of our local fisheries,” a Wildlife Service spokesperson said in a statement, noting the agency has funded ongoing research.

Future support is uncertain, though, as the Trump administration proposes eliminating programs that underwrite sea otter science, including grants for state endangered species programs.

Understanding otter networks

Sea otters once inhabited the Pacific Rim from Japan to Mexico. By the turn of the 20th century, hunters had wiped out 99% of the population to satisfy demand for the animal’s pelt, known as “soft gold” for its luxurious warmth.

Since then, scientists successfully reintroduced otters to Alaska, British Columbia and Washington State, but that leaves a nearly thousand-mile stretch of coast from central California through Oregon without the animals.

“Adding sea otters completely changes the configuration of the food web and that has profound consequences for the structure of the nearshore ecosystem,” says Tim Tinker, an independent sea otter scientist who does research for the University of California at Santa Cruz.

He’s developing computer models to simulate the myriad factors that will determine where and which animals should be reintroduced, as well as risks and survival rates. Future versions of the model could also project the potential impact on fisheries.

The Sea Otter Fund is financing Tinker’s work, recruiting him to model restoration scenarios, the kind of research he previously has conducted with government funding. It’s the latest animal fund from the Wildlife Conservation Network, co-founded in 2002 by former software entrepreneur Charles Knowles. Ongoing campaigns fund the recovery of African elephants, lions, pangolins and other animals.

Michelle Staedler studies sea otters at Elkhorn Slough.

(Rachel Bujalski/Bloomberg)

The fund also underwrites marine biologist Michelle Staedler’s position on an Elkhorn Slough research team run out of UC Santa Cruz. “We’re really trying to understand the sea otters’ social networks,” she says.

Charting otters’ social graph is key to future restoration efforts. Past reintroductions have involved capturing random sea otters in the wild and relocating up to hundreds at a time, which resulted in high mortality of resettled animals. Of the 140 otters relocated off Southern California’s San Nicolas Island between 1987 and 1990 in a federally funded project, only about 15 animals initially survived. More than a quarter of the transported otters swam more than 150 miles back home.

Scientists say any future reintroductions will be highly targeted, selecting sea otters that are part of social groups whose bonds make them more likely to stay put and thrive. To lay that groundwork, Staedler spends a day on Elkhorn Slough twice a week, motoring through the estuary on an electric skiff to record the genders, locations, relationships, interactions, diets and caloric intake of tagged otters.

“Elkhorn Slough serves as a petri dish and the research work there will be critical for doing restoration,” says Knowles. State funding for that project has expired, however, and the Sea Otter Fund is considering replacing the loss.

Staedler keeps records of the sea otters on Elkhorn Slough.

(Rachel Bujalski/Bloomberg)

“This wave has been building”

Elkhorn Slough is California’s second-largest estuary, and the 7-mile-long outlet to Monterey Bay also serves as a real-time laboratory for how sea otters can rehabilitate degraded coastal ecosystems and benefit local economies.

In the early 1990s, invasive green crabs that made their way there destroyed eel grass meadows that serve as habitats for fish, shellfish, sea turtles and birds. Then a few sea otters began to venture in just as the Monterey Bay Aquarium began to release rehabilitated orphaned otters there. They feasted on the green crabs, consuming an estimated 120,000 of them a year, according to a 2024 paper.

As crab numbers plummeted, the eel grass returned and spawned an aquatic Serengeti. Today, there’s more than 120 sea otters at the estuary, which has fostered local ecotourism businesses that rent kayaks to visitors and take them on otter-spotting excursions, generating $5 million in revenues annually and creating more than 300 jobs, according to a 2023 study.

Kayakers approach a sea otter in Elkhorn Slough.

(Rachel Bujalski/Bloomberg)

Sea otters also have kept kelp-eating purple urchins in check on the central California coast when one of its other predators, the sunflower sea star, died off during a marine heat wave a decade ago. On California’s otter-less North Coast, the loss of sunflower sea stars wiped out more than 90% of the region’s kelp forests, triggering the collapse of fisheries.

But the competition that relocated otters’ prodigious appetites could pose to Northern California and Oregon commercial shellfish fishers worries Lori Steele, executive director of the West Coast Seafood Processors Assn. “It’s very difficult to really fully understand and account for the potential damage to a shellfish population that a very small number of sea otters could do,” she says.

The Wildlife Service found that impacts on fishing communities pose the biggest risk of sea otter introduction. If relocation moves forward, the agency will conduct an extensive review and consultations with state and federal agencies and tribal groups.

Until then, Jen Miller, the senior manager of the Sea Otter Fund, aims to keep the money for the work flowing. “It feels like this wave has been building and building and with just the right resources could crest to surf sea otter restoration to success,” she says.

Woody writes for Bloomberg.

The Repair Shop featured the case of grieving parents John and Margaret Ivin this week – but there was more to the tale than met the eye, and the fresh detail is tragic

A heartbreaking blog details a son’s brave journey with cancer – which this week led to an emotional restoration on BBC’s The Repair Shop which left viewers in tears.

Chris Ivin had written by hand a note on the wallpaper on his family home when he was 14 and, when this was discovered behind a cupboard when parents John and Margaret did some renovation work recently, they hoped to get it turned into a treasured memorial. This was because Chris since died following his battle with testicular cancer and his grieving mother and father were desperate for fresh mementos.

To their astonishment, the team on the BBC show was able to restore the crumbling pieces of plaster containing the message and able to frame it as a lasting tribute to Chris, who was a high-flying TV camera operator. Viewers were in tears during the programme this week but, since then, yet more poignant details around the tragedy have emerged.

A blog has come to light which, though dormant for years since Chris’ death in May 2012, detailed the man’s journey with the disease. He gave moving and often humorous accounts of the ups and downs of daily life with his parents and fiancée Inna – who he referred to as “The Russian” – at his side.

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In one entry, Chris told how he had “still got my chin up” while adding: “It’s not all beer and skittles, this ‘being off work for way over a year’ thing. What I’ve got at the mo does have its drags, let me tell you. There are some very low days indeed.

“The Russian and I call them bad cancer days It’s very upsetting to be back on chemo after such a long time of recovery. I know I was told things were bad again back in Feb, hence the trip up north.

“It’s very sad to know that I’m back to not understanding my body and being very unpredictable about plans and seeing any of you guys.

“The worst was to come. After being released from hospital there were times I couldn’t even muster the coordination to walk or climb stairs. Help was required on a permanent basis either from the Russian or my mum and dad.”

Chris, who started his career as a camera assistant recording videos of live music performances including AC/DC and Tina Turner as well as for comedians Eddie Izzard and Lee Evans, was diagnosed with the rare form of testicular cancer in January 2011.

The media professional, from southeast London, underwent a series of gruelling treatments but died less than 18 months after his diagnosis on May 29, 2012. Among the treatment, Chris had experimental mistletoe therapy treatment in northern Scotland.

In another blog post, he wrote: “Every week I got a bit better but to be that reliant really took some getting used to. Eating, drinking, fetching the smallest things. Impossible. I really had to be waited on hand and foot. Sounds great? No way!.”

READ MORE: Dad stunned after son makes incredible discovery in pockets of £6 charity shop jacket

Chris became a freelancer for the BBC, before landing a sought after job in Formula One providing coverage for broadcasters around the world. His blog also alluded to his illustrious career but later featured references to his dark days towards the end of his cancer battle.

And his dad left one of the final, devastating post in May 2012. Announcing the heartbreaking news of his death John wrote to followers: “For all those people that do not know that our beloved son, Chris ‘Milton’ passed away 13.26 this afternoon (29-05). He did not want to go, but when he did it was peacefully.”

John and Margaret, who are in their 70s, were overwhelmed with emotion when The Repair Shop team presented them with the restored message, complete with a tidy frame, in this week’s episode. Margaret gasped: “That’s amazing” at the treasure.

Rob Fraser, the heritage stonemason at BBC’s The Repair Shop, was tasked with a delicate restoration that required careful attention to detail, as he warned ‘this is not going to be easy’

The latest instalment of BBC’s The Repair Shop left viewers reaching for the tissues, as newcomer Rob Fraser was given the task of restoring an item with enormous sentimental value.

During Tuesday’s (August 26) episode, which recently saw one expert fret about their repair, heritage stonemason Rob Fraser was introduced to a couple, John and Margaret Ivin, who had brought along a fragment of plaster from their kitchen wall for restoration.

The damaged pieces of plaster bore writing on them, which prompted BBC favourite Dominic China to ask about its importance.

Margaret explained that during a kitchen refurbishment last summer, their builder had uncovered the message concealed behind one of the original cupboards. She said: “Where they’d taken one of the original cupboards off the wall, this was behind it and it was a complete shock to see it there.”

The message had been penned by their late son Christopher when he was approximately 14-years-old. It read: “This is original wallpaper. Friday 4:15 8th December 1989. Please leave this wallpaper, Chris.”

Margaret, clearly emotional, explained that Christopher frequently left messages for them. She then disclosed the devastating news that their son had tragically passed away from a rare form of testicular cancer when he was nearly 35.

She said: “It was 18 months from diagnosis to when he died. When you lose a child, you never get over it, you get through it and we’ve just got through it.”

Discovering their son’s handwriting once again on the plasterwork proved deeply emotional, and it became apparent that Rob was facing an enormously difficult task ahead.

Taking a closer look at the damaged plaster, he said: “There’s so much going on, the paper is really fragmented, so that’s very risky. I’ll have to take my time, I might need some help.

“It’s not going to be easy. I need to get eyes on all these pieces and work out what condition each individual piece is in. I’m really nervous about handling this. This is gypsum plaster, which is very brittle.”

In the end, Rob successfully managed to restore the plasterwork and the time came to show John and Margaret the final result as the expert called upon two more specialists from the workshop to help.

When the big reveal happened, they were completely amazed as Margaret gasped: “That’s amazing.” Both were moved to tears as John could be spotted wiping his eyes.

She added: “What can I say? What can I say? It’s funny handwriting, he would be chuffed to bits to see that. I mean, he was what, 14? and he would’ve been 48 this year.”

John said: “He was a lovely boy, yeah.” Both thanked the experts for fixing the damaged plaster as they stressed how incredible it was.

The Repair Shop is available to watch on BBC iPlayer.

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