In the Field

Taking a Breather - Sea Otter in the Great Bear. Great Bear Rainforest, British Columbia, Canada. August 18, 2024.

This image makes me smile. Part of the reason is that it reminds me of the wonderful encounter we had with this "oh-so-cute" and "oh-so-relaxed" Sea Otter in a narrow and dead-calm passage in the Great Bear Rainforest of British Columbia. But a bigger part of the smile comes from the wonderful conservation success that made this image possible - the re-introduction of the Sea Otter on the BC coast. Long story short, Sea Otters were completely and totally extirpated from the BC coast by fur-hunters by the mid-1800's. In 1969, 1970, and 1972 89 Sea Otters were successfully reintroduced on the west coast of Vancouver Island. As their population has grown they have spread around the top of Vancouver Island and, in recent years, we are seeing more and more of them on the coast of mainland BC and the southern tip of Haida Gwaii. This past spring we even saw them north of Prince Rupert (not far from the Alaska border). YES!!!! 😀

Creating wildlife art with fully wild and non-habituated Sea Otters is tricky business. To begin with, and for reasons I have no explanation for, Sea Otters are highly variable in their "approachability", even with otters that are found within the same group (or "raft"). Some dive (and move long distances below the water) when you're hundreds of meters of them. Others, like this calm and ultra-chill dude, will allow you to approach very closely. Another challenge of creating Sea Otter art is finding the approachable ones during a favorable "sea state", i.e., when the water they're on is calm and, hopefully, with aesthetically pleasing reflections. So catching this guy chilling out and relaxing in dead calm dark green and brown water was close to a dream come true for me!

I was very pleased that we were able to approach this otter, photograph it, and then withdraw without disturbing it in any discernible way (it was still casually floating on the surface ostensibly enjoying the day as we motored away in our small Zodiac).

Here's a larger version (4800 pixel) of this cute and fluffy Sea Otter:

• Taking a Breather - Sea Otter in the Great Bear: Download 4800 pixel image (JPEG: 2.8 MB)

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

1. These images - in all resolutions - are protected by copyright. I'm fine with personal uses of them (including use as desktop backgrounds or screensavers on your own computer), but unauthorized commercial use of the image is prohibited by law. Thanks in advance for respecting my copyright!

2. Like all photographs on this website, these images were captured following the strict ethical guidelines described in The Wildlife FIRST! Principles of Photographer Conduct. As such, no baiting or any form of attractant was used and, as always, we attempted to minimize our impact on the ongoing behaviour of the subjects. I strongly encourage all wildlife photographers to always put the welfare of their subjects above the value of their photographs.

3. This image was captured during my Summer in the Southern Great Bear Exploratory Photo Adventure in late August of 2024. Each year I offer trips into the Great Bear Rainforest as well as tours into the Khutzeymateen Grizzly Sanctuary (to photograph grizzlies, of course!). Details about these trips can be found on the Photo Tours page of this website.

Behind the Camera

Taking a Breather - Sea Otter in the Great Bear. Great Bear Rainforest, British Columbia, Canada. August 18, 2024.

High Efficiency* Compressed RAW (NEF) format; ISO 1250.

Nikon Z 9 paired with Z Nikkor 400mm f2.8S. Hand-held from a floating Zodiac inflatable boat. VR on in Sport mode. Single-point AF area mode.

1/1600s @ f3.2; -1.0 stop compensation from matrix-metered exposure setting.

At the Computer

Taking a Breather - Sea Otter in the Great Bear. Great Bear Rainforest, British Columbia, Canada. August 18, 2024.

Subsequent adjustments to the adjusted linear DNG file (exported from PhotoLab) and conversion to 16-bit TIFF file (and JPEG files for web use) - including all global and selective adjustments - made using Phase One's Capture One Pro 23 (build 16.4.6). In the case of this image there were no global adjustments made. Selective local adjustments performed using Capture One Pro's layers and masking tools. In this case numerous small adjustments and minor tweaks were made on 5 separate layers, with most of the tweaks being associated with "exposure balancing" and contrast adjustments (such as adjustments to clarity, highlights, shadows, etc.). The colour of the dark fur of the otter was adjusted using a selective adjustment to the blue channel (curves adjustment).

Photoshop modifications included insertion of the watermark and/or text.

Conservation

Taking a Breather - Sea Otter in the Great Bear. Great Bear Rainforest, British Columbia, Canada. August 18, 2024.

Species Status in Canada*: Special Concern (April 2007) - protected off the North American coast since 1911.

Back in the late 1800's and early 1900's the Sea Otter (Enhydra lutris) was hunted to near extinction along both the Asian and North American Pacific Coasts. The reason? It's luxuriant coat. Otters are unlike any other aquatic mammal in that they don't use fat or blubber to insulate themselves from the chilling effects of the water they are found in. Instead, they rely on their amazingly thick fur coat for insulation. Their amazing coats have a higher density of hair (up to 150,000 strands of hair per square cm!) than any other animal in existence today. To ensure that this coat serves its insulative purpose, otters spend a disproportionately large amount of time grooming their coat (to ensure its natural oils continue to provide an effective waterproof barrier). Unfortunately, the biological functioning of the otters coat can be easily fouled by contamination by oil and other hydrocarbons - thus making them extremely sensitive to the effective of marine oil spills.

Other fascinating aspects of the biology and behaviour of the sea otter include the use of tools (they will use rocks to break apart shellfish such as sea urchins), and the fact that they have an metabolic rate two to three times higher than other mammals of their size. This means they must eat 23% to 33% of their own body weight DAILY, just to to replace the calories burned through maintaining their body temperature in the cold water environment they live in.

*as determined by COSEWIC: The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada