Pricey sea cucumbers face increasing sea otter appetites

dive-sea-cucumbersSea cucumbers are the most valuable of Alaska’s dive fisheries and give a nice boost to coastal towns, especially in Southeast. Annual harvests each October hover around one million pounds and attract nearly 200 divers, who will fetch between $4 to $5 a pound for their pickings. The harvest used to approach two million pounds but sea otters have cleaned out cucumbers in many areas over the past decade. None of the areas they have gone back and resurveyed have they seen any sea cucumbers. It’s not like the otter come in and move on and the population rebounds. The otters stay. We’ve lost on an annual basis between 500-000 to 600,000 pounds of product and the trend is downward. Audio report, read the rest here 16:46

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