Stories of Resilience (For Planet Ocean Challenge, 08/06/2025)

For Planet Ocean Challenge 2025. Prompt 4: Stories of Resilience

When I was about nine years old, my primary school teacher told me how human disturbance had led to the local extirpation of European river otters in Flanders. Overhunting, water pollution, and concreted riverbanks were just some of the causes of their demise. I was heartbroken. For weeks, I tried writing a protest letter to right this wrong. But it was 1994, and without the internet, I had no idea who to address my letter to or what exactly to write. My protest died a quiet death, but within me grew an ever-stronger love for otters.

Today, river otters are slowly returning to Flanders, and I can only hope they'll make it.

Maybe it was my childhood love for river otters that led me to marine ecology, because some years ago, it was sea otters that stole my heart. Not because of their behaviour (according to a book I recently read by Frauke Bagusche, some have rather disturbing sexual preferences, including seal puppies and dead animals...) but because of their role in ecology.

Let me take you to the Pacific coast of North America, where underwater kelp forests set the scene for my story. Kelp, a type of brown seaweed, can grow well over 30 metres tall. Small gas-filled bladders help the plants float upward, creating vast underwater forests. These forests are a beloved habitat for many creatures, including bristle worms, prawns, snails, brittle stars, sea urchins, sea stars, anemones, crabs, jellyfish, rockfish, sea lions, and seals. They use the kelp forests to forage, reproduce, and hide from predators.

No kelp, no life.

And that’s exactly what happened when people prioritised fancy women in fur coats* over ecologically healthy marine ecosystems. The overhunting of sea otters for their fur in the 18th to 20th centuries led to the collapse of otter populations. Without otters, sea urchins were given free rein to redesign the ecosystem by devouring the forests until nothing was left but so-called urchin barrens - a term for underwater deserts where sea urchins have destroyed all the kelp.

How is this a story of resilience, you ask? Because in places where sea otters have returned, the ecosystem can recover. Otters start feeding on the sea urchins, and without overgrazing, the kelp forests are able to return - as has been observed in California and British Columbia. 

Our marine ecosystems are resilient and can recover from human disturbance, under one condition: we must remove that disturbance. If we want healthy marine ecosystems - something we rely on for our very existence - we need to lift the pressures we’ve placed on them: overhunting and overfishing, habitat destruction, bottom trawling in MPA's, chemical pollution, global warming, etc. 

These ecosystems are resilient, but they can't do it on their own. It’s us - humans - who need to take action by voting conciously, consuming wisely, and adapting our dietary habits. Only then can sea otters - and all these other magnificent creatures - come to the rescue.

* The fur wasn't just used for women's coats. Sea otter fur was highly prised and in high demand, used for clothing, furniture, and other luxury items, fueling a significant international trade at the time.

This post is part of my contribution to the For Planet Ocean Challenge 2025, using art and storytelling for ocean awareness.

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