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More Thai rivers and downstream communities at risk from Myanmar’s rare earth mines
BANGKOK — New satellite data identified 513 sites of rare-earth mining that have cropped up across at least six key tributaries of the Mekong, Salween and Irrawaddy rivers in Myanmar over the past 10 years. These include 40 believed to have opened this year alone, with the total marking a dramatic increase from previous estimates and suggesting the risk of transboundary river pollution is significantly higher than once thought.
The new data and analysis from nonprofit think tank the Stimson Center, published Sept. 22, warns that the proliferation of unregulated mining operations in Myanmar, which are already having dire outcomes in northern Thailand’s Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai provinces, could be worse for the region’s rivers than expected.
Brian Eyler, director of the Stimson Center’s Southeast Asia program, who conducted research on the river contamination in northern Thailand, said further testing is urgently needed.
He urged other countries to begin testing their waterways potentially as far afield as Cambodia and Vietnam, because the potential for acids, heavy metals, arsenic and other toxins linked to mining flowing downstream is now significantly higher than previously reported.
This testing, he added, needs to include the water, sediment and surrounding soil from rivers. It was the “sticky mud” that inundated parts of northern Thailand following heavy rainfall that first alerted his team to contamination on the Kok River, which flows into Chiang Mai’s Mae Ai district from Myanmar, before going on to feed into the Mekong River in Chiang Saen district, Chiang Rai.
“That’s what’s sticky about [the mud] – it’s composed of all these heavy metals and chemicals,” Eyler said. “The Sai River actually has the worst levels of pollution of the rivers tested by Chiang Mai University, much worse than the Kok River, although the Kok River is still bad.”
Data from the Stimson Center shows the proliferation of unregulated rare earth mineral mines across river basins in Myanmar, resulting in toxic runoff flowing downstream. Image by Emilie Languedoc / Mongabay.
Data from the Stimson Center shows the proliferation of unregulated rare earth mineral mines across river basins in Myanmar, resulting in toxic runoff flowing downstream. Image by Emilie Languedoc / Mongabay.
The Sai River crosses from Tachileik in Myanmar to Thailand’s northernmost point — Mae Sai in Chiang Rai province — before flowing into the Ruak River, which in turn empties into the Mekong River before this major river system flows onward through Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.
Both the Sai and Kok rivers have carried toxic chemicals from mines in Shan state, Myanmar. (Both rivers trace their origins to the state’s Daen Lao mountains.) From Shan, they flow to communities in northern Thailand that are heavily dependent on rivers for survival, causing an estimated 1.3 billion baht ($40 million) in losses across the farming, fishing and tourism industries.
In Tha Ton subdistrict of Chiang Mai and Mae Sai district of Chiang Rai, the Kok and Sai rivers respectively provide communities with water for drinking and for household and agricultural use. But this has all been heavily contaminated, largely with chemicals associated with rare earth mining activity.
“We went to Tha Ton and they’re so desperate there,” Eyler said. “They told us they’ve lost their economy, they don’t know whether the water is safe, they worry they’ll get sick and there’s not a lot of understanding or communication about the health implications of being in proximity to these chemicals — it’s tearing their communities apart.”
The Network for the Protection of Kok, Sai, Ruak, and Mekong Rivers, a community-led grassroots organization, has sprung up to fill the gap left by the largely absent Thai government’s response to this unfolding crisis, communicating scientific research to affected communities and calling on the government to do more.
In early October, the network filed a 10-point petition to the new Thai government, demanding soil monitoring across roughly 16,000 hectares (39,500 acres) of potentially contaminated farmland, the development of alternative water sources, and the establishment of provincial heavy metal testing facilities.
The petition also called for a halt to all mineral imports from Myanmar until said commodities could be proven pollution-free, while also calling for regional negotiations between China, Myanmar and Thailand to address the mining crisis.
The Stimson Center met with local communities in Tha Ton subdistrict, Chiang Mai province, to discuss the impacts of river pollution linked to rare earth mining. Image supplied by Brian Eyler.
The Stimson Center met with local communities in Tha Ton subdistrict, Chiang Mai province, to discuss the impacts of river pollution linked to rare earth mining. Image supplied by Brian Eyler.
Myanmar mined for the modern economy
Rare earth minerals are predominantly found under mountains or hills, making Myanmar’s states of Kachin and Shan lucrative deposits. In Myanmar, rare earth minerals are commonly mined using a technique similar to fracking, in which water is mixed with a variety of chemicals and injected into the ground via leaching ponds, pushing a liquified mix of minerals and mud into collection pools below.
Once the mountain has been drained of the mineral-rich solutions, these pools of chemicals are simply abandoned as miners move onto the next mountain.
“The rare earth mineral mines proliferate rapidly because they occur in proximity of one another, it’s in the soil all around these rivers, so once one mining site is used up, the miners will just move to the next hill,” Eyler told Mongabay in a phone interview. “Each site only lasts about three years, but wastewater pools just stay there, many filled with contaminated substances so that when you get heavy rain, that pushes it out of the pools and into local streams below.”
As the monsoon season peaks across Southeast Asia, Eyler said the extra rain will serve to both dilute the existing pollution in rivers and to exacerbate the risk of yet more wastewater overflowing from mining operations into rivers.
Rare earth minerals consist of 17 metallic elements and are, despite what the name suggests, considered abundant. But they’re rarely found in large concentrations and are often mixed in with other ores, minerals and metals. Rare earth minerals are used in a wide range of products, including magnets, smartphones, batteries, wind turbines and solar panels, and are crucial to the energy, aerospace and health care sectors. Many of the products manufactured from these minerals require large quantities: electric cars need six times as many minerals as internal combustion engine cars, while wind farms require nine times as many as a natural gas plant. Other products containing rare earths, like the semiconductors fueling artificial intelligence data centers, create their own set of environmental problems.
China holds the world’s largest supply of rare earth minerals and also dominates the global processing capacity. As of 2024, there were an estimated 44 million metric tons of rare earth reserves across the country. But the widespread environmental damage that’s resulted from extracting this supply has led to the Chinese government to imposing quotas on domestic rare earth mineral mines, closing mines that aren’t environmentally compliant, and imposing stricter controls on how these mines operate.
Contamination from rare earth mining operations in Myanmar has been detected in crops planted on floodplains of the Kok River in northern Thailand. Image supplied by Brian Eyler.
Contamination from rare earth mining operations in Myanmar has been detected in crops planted on floodplains of the Kok River in northern Thailand. Image supplied by Brian Eyler.
In October 2025, China tightened restrictions on the export of rare earth minerals, requiring exporters to be granted permission from the government to sell the minerals abroad. This prompted stockpiling of key rare earth minerals by the U.S. government, particularly those needed for the defense and aerospace sectors.
China sits upstream of the myriad environmental woes its overseas sourcing of rare earth minerals creates, leaving its southern neighbors with the task of cleaning up.
Since December 2023, China has banned the export of technology used to process these minerals, cementing its control of the market and expanding its reliance on rare earth mineral imports.
Myanmar has become a key player in filling China’s supply chain gap following the 2021 coup carried out by the Myanmar military. While the previous civilian government banned rare earth mineral exports in 2018, this ban was ignored at the time by various ethnic armed groups that have long controlled territory outside the central government’s control. Since the coup, some of these ethnic armed groups have aligned with people’s defense forces that oppose the junta, providing training and weapons to those seeking to resist the junta.
Other ethnic armed groups have sought to autonomously expand their territories in pursuit of precious resources, leaving a trail of environmental problems and rights abuses in their wake. It’s here where Chinese demand has seen a spike in rare earth mineral mining operations from 2022 onward.
Locally, in Kachin and Shan states, where rare earth mining is at its most prolific in Myanmar, the forests are paying the price, with tens of thousands of hectares of tree cover vanishing as mining operations expand from hilltop to hilltop.
One regularly touted estimate suggests that for every ton of rare earth extracted, 2,000 tons of toxic waste is produced, including 75 cubic meters (nearly 20,000 gallons) of wastewater.
Reports of skin rashes and fish kills in the Kok River prompted both officials and activists to conduct tests of the river water. Image courtesy of Ecological Alert and Recovery–Thailand.
Reports of skin rashes and fish kills in the Kok River prompted both officials and activists to conduct tests of the river water. Image courtesy of Ecological Alert and Recovery–Thailand.
From the Irrawaddy to the Mekong and beyond
Kachin state, where 451 rare earth mines opened in the Irrawaddy River Basin over the last decade, emerged as a hotspot for rare earth mining since 2018. Mining expanded rapidly after the 2021 coup, with 260 of the 451 identified mines opening since then.
However, the number of new mines there declined significantly between 2024 and 2025 as production shifted with the fluidity of the ongoing conflict.
According to Jason Tower, a researcher working with the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, mining shifted from Kachin state to Shan state in December 2024 after the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) defeated the forces of the New Democratic Army–Kachin (NDA-K). The latter is led by Zahkung Ting Ying, a key partner of Chinese mining companies, who has since fled to China and is trying to rebuild his mining empire.
Satellite imagery analysis from the Stimson Center shows how rare earth mining operations shifted from Kachin state to Shan state in recent years, intensifying transboundary pollution. Image by Emilie Languedoc / Mongabay.
The KIA then sought to impose heavier taxes and stricter environmental regulations on Chinese-run rare earth mines, prompting Chinese mining companies to seek out new hubs of production with fewer restrictions, Tower added.
In Shan state, the Stimson Center’s data show a trend of the Mekong River Basin becoming increasingly important for rare earth miners. Of the 58 mines seen along the Ruak, Lwe and Kok rivers — key Mekong tributaries — 44 were opened between 2022 and 2025.
None of this offers much in the way of hope for communities in Myanmar or Thailand ravaged by toxic runoff from these rare earth mines. Assessing the impact on communities in Myanmar remains difficult due to the restricted access to areas controlled by the ethnic armed groups.
Tower warned that, as the situation in Shan state and along the Thai border continues to deteriorate due to water pollution, it remains unlikely that either the Myanmar junta or the United Wa State Army will address this issue.
“The Myanmar military itself has no capacity or interest in engaging in any form of environmental protection, and instead is presently attempting to use airstrikes and military campaigns to retake control of the mines,” Tower said. “For its part, the [United Wa State Army] has previously indicated some concerns about environmental impacts of mining, but has done little in practice when it comes to regulation. It is further unlikely that China would put in place measures to influence how mining of [rare earths] is conducted in Myanmar given that any move to do so would function to undermine its price advantage.”
Negro River study finds genetic damage in fish after oil spill
On the morning of March 26, 2013, approximately 60,000 liters (16,000 gallons) of an oil byproduct used to produce asphalt spilled from a barge on the Negro River, near the São Raimundo Harbor in Manaus. When researcher Helen Sadauskas-Henrique saw the news on TV, she did not hesitate to cancel plans to spend Easter with her family in São Paulo and rushed to the site to collect samples.
“I had already conducted lab tests on the effects of oil exposure on fish in the Negro River, but I’d never observed anything like this in the natural environment,” recalls Sadauskas-Henrique, now a professor at Santa Cecília University and a researcher at INCT Adapta, headquartered at the National Institute for Amazonian Research (INPA). “It was all very fast and intense. The samples had to be collected as quickly as possible to assess the impacts, both immediately and over time.”
The results of this effort were published in the journal Environmental Research. The team evaluated the effects of oil over 10, 45 and 90 days on two species that are common in the Negro, the threadfin acara (Acarichthys heckelii) and the demon eartheater (Satanoperca jurupari), using samples taken from a clean stretch of the river in the Tupé Sustainable Development Reserve as references — that is, a place without significant influence from human activities or the spill.
The study shows that the concentration of the contaminant in the water decreased with rising water levels, but the fish continued to exhibit effects of exposure months later, including DNA damage. The characteristics of the Negro River’s waters — naturally acidic and rich in dissolved organic matter — increased the chemical compound’s toxicity.
In the Amazon, incidents like the one at the São Raimundo Harbor are not isolated. In countries with more intense oil exploration in the forest such as Peru and Ecuador, accidents are frequent: A 2020 Oxfam survey found 474 spills in the Peruvian Amazon from 2000-19. In Brazil, agencies such as IBAMA, Brazil’s federal environmental agency, and ANP, the National Petroleum Agency, keep reports on these accidents but have no consolidated figures specific to the Amazon.
In Amazonas state, data on oil product spills are scattered throughout violation reports at the Amazonas Environmental Protection Institute (IPAAM). Mongabay conducted a search with the agency under Brazil’s Access to Information Act and found 19 oil spills from various sources, which were fined between 2016 and 2020, without details on volume.
As pressure mounts over new oil exploration projects in the region, both onshore and along the so-called Equatorial Margin, a consistent body of research warns of its harmful effects on Amazonian aquatic ecosystems.
Fishers and researchers collect fish near the São Raimundo Harbor in Manaus, Amazonas, after an oil spill. Image courtesy of Helen Sadauskas-Henrique.
Oil and black water in the Amazon: A deadly combo
The chemical compound spilled in the Negro River in 2013 was an oil byproduct: petroleum asphalt cement (PAC), used to produce asphalt. It is a highly viscous, usually poorly soluble material, but with a fraction that can dissolve or disperse in water. It contains polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), contaminants that are harmful to the health of humans, animals and plants. Because it is more viscous than mixtures used in fuels, PAC clumps together. “It turns into blocks or ‘stones,’ which have started to appear on beaches,” she explains.
The portion that passes into the water tends to bind to the river’s organic matter and accumulate in sediments. In the Negro River, this is worse: Its waters contain a lot of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) resulting from the decomposition of leaves, branches and tree trunks, which gives the water a “tea-colored” appearance, as Sadauskas-Henrique explains. DOC can interact with PAHs, increasing their availability for fish to absorb.
“There are few studies on oil contamination specifically in the Negro River’s water,” she says. “Lab tests indicate that dissolved organic carbon present in water can make it easy for oil components such as PAHs to enter fish cells.”
The Amazon poses challenges for science. Although studies indicate that blackwater rivers can increase the toxicity of oil components, there is not enough research to establish this as a general rule. “The composition of organic matter changes with rainfall and depends on the source of the material. Therefore, the interaction of that water with PAHs and cells may also change,” Sadauskas-Henrique explains. “Different sources of dissolved organic carbon must be studied to understand how they may affect permeability in cell membranes and absorption of compounds such as PAHs.”
A vessel accident led to the spill of approximately 60,000 liters (16,000 gallons) of petroleum asphalt cement into the Negro River, in Manaus; in the photo, a team works on removing the vessel from the river. Image courtesy of Helen Sadauskas-Henrique.
Amazonian fish may be more susceptible
Once in the sediment or water column, both soluble and particulate oil fractions enter through the gills or are ingested with food. Approximately 10% of the 1,165 fish species in the Negro river feed on the substrate. Because of this, and due to their more sedentary and territorial lifestyle — as is the case with the species studied — their susceptibility to this type of contamination may be greater.
At the São Raimundo Harbor, the concentration of PAHs in the water dropped by approximately 56% between 10 and 90 days after the accident, following the rise of the river. But the effects on the fish persisted. Ten days after the spill, DNA damage was already present, as well as signs of overload in cell membranes and liver. “This indicates that the animal is expending a lot of energy to face the contamination, which impairs other critical functions such as swimming, growth and reproduction,” Sadauskas-Henrique explains.
Within 45 days, both species showed high levels of genetic damage associated with the DOC-PAH combo in the water. At 90 days, the effects were compounded by signs of nervous system intoxication, which can affect swimming and feeding.
The association between PAHs and dissolved organic carbon, on the one hand, and greater stress and damage, on the other, suggests that the effects of oil interact with the characteristics of Amazonian blackwaters. “In this ecosystem, the impacts of an accident can be prolonged,” Sadauskas-Henrique reflects. “Faced with a large contamination load, species like the ones we studied may face greater pressure, at risk of local decline.”
And it’s not just petroleum. In Manaus as in other urban areas of the Amazon, interactions between pollutants, such as other oils, pesticides and microplastics, and extreme weather events such as prolonged droughts, combine in harmful ways, which science is still trying to understand.
Fish carcass on the dry bed of Lake Tefé during the 2024 drought. Image courtesy of Alessandro Falco/INCT Adapta.
Oil in the Amazon: Damage and Spills
Since the 1960s, oil spills have been frequent in Amazonian countries neighboring Brazil such as Peru and Ecuador. From 2011-22, approximately 36% of Peruvian oil was produced in the Amazon. In Ecuador, most of the production takes place in the eastern Amazon region.
Some cases stand out. In 2000, a stranded barge spilled 5,500 barrels of oil into Peru’s Marañón River. In 2007, in a Marañón tributary, a landslide ruptured an oil pipeline, spilling between 4,000 and 6,000 barrels, according to independent experts. In 2013, 11,000 barrels leaked into Ecuador’s Coca River, also as a result of a pipeline rupture. In the Ecuadorian Amazon, between 1972 and 2015, most spills occurred in river basins that connect protected areas and supply local communities, Indigenous peoples and riverine communities.
Although oil exploration in the Brazilian Amazon is not yet on the same scale as in neighboring countries, serious accidents have also occurred. In 1999, a ruptured pipeline released oil into the Cururu Stream in Manaus, reducing its wealth and abundance of aquatic insects. The oil quickly spread across the surface and settled in the sediment along the banks. The pipeline connected the Manaus refinery (Isaac Sabbá, now privatized) to the former Manaus Energia plant.
Currently, the main onshore oil and gas hub in the Brazilian Amazon is Urucu province in Coari, Amazonas state. In 2016, the average daily oil production in the area was approximately 40,000 barrels, in addition to 14 million cubic meters (494 million cubic feet) of natural gas. The 663-km (412-mile) Urucu-Coari-Manaus gas pipeline has been in commercial operation since 2009.
Álvaro Bezerra de Souza Junior, an engineer with a master’s degree in energy planning, conducted a case study in the 1990s on the safety and risks of exploration in Urucu. He says that Urucu oil is light and requires less refining, being primarily used in fuels.
While oil exploration in the Brazilian Amazon is currently considered safe, “the risk of spills during transportation is always significant,” he says. “This is important in a scenario of increasing fragmentation in the distribution market. Since Petrobras divested itself of control over BR Distribuidora and left the distribution business, many operators work under varying levels of control and rigor, and that includes outsourced barges for river transportation.”
In 2013, the company responsible for the petroleum asphalt cement cargo did not have a license to operate at the São Raimundo Harbor, according to IPAAM. In violation reports from 2016-20, Mongabay found 15 other fines related to irregular transportation or storage of oil products, obtained from IPAAM under the Access to Information Act.
Aerial photo of the Arara Oil Hub, which connects the Urucu-Coari-Manaus Gas Pipeline to the Amazon capital. Image courtesy of Petrobras.
Is there a future for oil exploration in the Amazon?
The impacts of oil products on Amazonian biodiversity are numerous and usually harmful. Before studying the 2013 spill, Sadauskas-Henrique was part of INPA teams that documented, in the laboratory, the effects of annatto oil on fish — e.g., the cachama (Colossoma macropomum) — and aquatic plants.
Respiratory disorders and severe changes in gills, such as displacement of their cell cover and necrosis, were observed in cachama exposed to soluble and insoluble fractions of the oil. Similar effects were reported for gold spot pleco (Glyptoperichthys joselimaianus).
In aquatic plants, the oil forms a physical barrier, reduces light pe*******on and hinders gas exchange, in addition to affecting flowering and germination. Furthermore, these plants are the staple diet of other animals such as manatees, which would make them more vulnerable to contamination.
These are some of the reasons for concern about the expansion of oil in the Amazon, which increases the risk of accidents and contamination. In addition to the attempt to drill an exploratory well on the Equatorial Margin, the ANP included 68 Legal Amazon blocks in the June 17, 2025, round: 47 in the mouth of the Amazon and 21 onshore, in the Parecis Basin. In addition to the environmental risk, the proposal directly or systematically threatens the areas of influence of 19 Indigenous lands, according to a technical note from the Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon (COIAB).
Petrobras is the leader in oil exploration in the Brazilian Amazon. Brazilian banks such as BTG Pactual and Itaú Unibanco and international ones such as Santander and Citibank have financed the company to the tune of $100 billion over the past 20 years, according to a report by Stand.earth. The study indicates that, on average, 71% of the Amazon is not effectively covered by the socioenvironmental policies of the region’s main oil and gas financiers.
Martyna Dominiak, leader of the Exit Amazon Oil and Gas campaign, says oil and gas exploration in the Amazon is associated with deforestation, pollution and violations of Indigenous peoples’ rights. “Oil infrastructure in other Amazonian countries show that it opens roads for other activities, often illegal, and for other activities that pollute the Amazon and do not benefit local communities,” Dominiak argues. “The entire Amazonia should be protected.”
Booming sea otters and fading shellfish spark values clash in Alaska
HOMER, Alaska — Roarke Brown, a charter boat captain since 1972 in this picturesque fishing village, remembers being able to tread out onto the Kachemak Bay mud flats at low tide to fill a 5-gallon bucket with clams in little time with minimal effort. Tanner and Dungeness crabs? Drop a pot; haul it up crawling with crustaceans.
“There was a big commercial crab fishery here that’s been closed for decades,” Brown tells Mongabay, seated aboard the Pacific Shadow, his charter boat, in Homer’s busy harbor. “It’s just like a plowed field where we used to get clams. It’s no better for razors [clams) and mussels.”
There’s a complex tangle of historical, ecological and climactic explanations for the decline of nearshore shellfish populations off Homer, across the Kenai Peninsula, and throughout the expansive Gulf of Alaska. But Brown and his shellfishing brethren, in concert with some marine biologists and Native Alaskans, point to one culprit:
The incessantly hungry, steadily propagating northern sea otter (Enhydra lutris kenyoni).
Amid Alaska’s vast wilderness and rich coastal biodiversity — ranging from halibut to king salmon, bald eagles to tufted puffins, humpback whales to harbor seals — there is no more controversial species than the big-eyed, long-whiskered, luxuriously coated sea otter.
Roarke Brown, left, joins two deckhands in the busy Homer harbor aboard his charter boat the Pacific Shadow.
Roarke Brown, left, joins two deckhands in the busy Homer harbor aboard his charter boat the Pacific Shadow. Brown maintains that an unchecked sea otter population boom in the past 20 years has diminished the ability of shellfishers like himself to harvest clams, crabs, mussels and oysters. Image by Justin Catanoso for Mongabay.
Across the gigantic arc of the Gulf of Alaska, from Glacier Bay in the state’s southeast, to Cook Inlet in the west, the rebounding population of sea otters represents a significant marine success story. Hunted nearly to extinction by Russian furriers in the early 1900s, otters gained protection in 1911 under the Fur Seal Treaty signed by the U.S., Great Britain, Russia and Japan.
In 1960, the state of Alaska gained management authority over sea otters and began reintroducing them to the Gulf. With the passage of the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service took over management of spreading and growing sea otter populations.
Aided by abundant food sources and no real predators (aside from the occasional killer whale), sea otters mounted a steady comeback over recent decades, helping balance nearshore ecosystems made up of critical kelp forests, but also taking a multimillion-dollar bite out of the shellfishing economy.
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game estimates the state’s current sea otter population at around 70,000 — mostly concentrated in the south-central waters around Cook Inlet and Prince William Sound, as well as the southeastern waters closer to the state capital of Juneau, with fewer to the southwest along the Aleutian Islands.
While otters once inhabited the entire west coast of North America as far south as Mexico, some 90% of today’s population is in Alaska alone, with far fewer along coastal California and Washington states.
Sea otters offer an entertaining sight for tourists amid otherwise empty expanses of water. In Cook Inlet off Homer, water taxis and charter boats routinely glide past rafts of otters, bobbing and floating on their backs, often clutching pups, in tight clusters numbering into the hundreds. Try to get too close and they make eye contact, then quickly disperse and dive.
A sea otter afloat in Little Tutka Bay on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula.
A sea otter afloat in Little Tutka Bay on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula. Image by Paxson Woelber, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).
A voracious appetite
“Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate otters,” Roarke Brown says. “When we take people out, everybody wants to see them. They’re cute and easy to find. But the marine [shellfish] trades are being hurt. Twenty years ago, there were only a few hundred [otters]. Now we have thousands.”
Only Native Alaskans can legally hunt these animals for their pelts — the densest fur of any mammal — having the potential to somewhat curb populations. But that activity, too, is legally fraught and controversial as the U.S. federal government keeps strict, some say racist, limits on who qualifies as a Native Alaskan.
In Mongabay’s two weeks of reporting in south-central Alaska, it became clear that the sea otter resurgence, and shellfish decline, embodies a nuanced story. It includes marine life adaptations to a massive natural disaster (1964’s earthquake that recontoured the Alaskan coastline to the sea otters’ eventual benefit), and a massive human-caused disaster (1989’s Exxon Valdez oil spill that wiped out all manner of marine animals, including otters).
Today, these furry marine mammals endure, with their story now expanding to include climate change impacts, the necessity for marine research, and the ongoing debate over how to manage an apex predator so lean and calorically needy that it must eat up to 30% of its body weight every day.
Otters continue to do so on a champagne diet of shellfish highly valued as delicacies by U.S. and foreign consumers, and as basic sustenance in roadless coastal Native Alaskan villages.
Map of the Gulf of Alaska showing the major geographic points named in this story.
Map of the Gulf of Alaska showing the major geographic points named in this story. Image by Karl Musser via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.5).
The science behind a species resurgence
Marine ecologist Heather Coletti, with the National Park Service in Anchorage, has been studying sea otters in Prince William Sound and beyond for a quarter-century. She’s been steadily building on the research of the late Jim Estes, a marine ecologist who made a key observation in the early 1970s while doing field surveys off the Aleutian Islands.
“When Jim went diving and saw where there were no sea otters, there was no kelp; it was like a monoculture of sea urchins,” Coletti tells Mongabay while sitting in a downtown park near her office. “Urchins eat kelp. Otters eat urchins. So when Jim went to places where there were otters, the kelp forests were intact, and all kinds of fish and marine life were thriving.”
Like Estes, Coletti has studied the importance of kelp forests in the Gulf of Alaska. These “forests in the water,” as she calls them, provide nursery habitat for a range of fish and shellfish, offering protection from predators and sequestering so much carbon they play a tangible role in mitigating climate change.
Measuring and monitoring components of nearshore ecosystems, Coletti gained a broad perspective. Intertidal areas were vastly different, and less productive, in the decades before sea otters were reintroduced to the Gulf of Alaska. But urchins, clams and crabs grew in abundance, literally feeding a sea otter birthing boom.
“In [the otters’] absence, the things they eat went crazy, right? There weren’t enough people or industry to make a dent in that [food supply],” Coletti says. “Sea otters, with their high metabolism and constant need to eat to stay warm (because they don’t have blubber), had free reign. Their populations have risen and fallen with the carrying capacity [of their favorite foods]. Plus, as an apex predator, there’s no real harvest of them.”
Coletti says she understands the downside impact of otters, diminishing the ease of gathering shellfish for human consumption. She talks often with Homer boat captain Roarke Brown about this problem, given his contract work with the National Park Service. But she emphasizes that, on balance, her ongoing research — now hampered by federal funding cuts — suggests otters remain a net positive ecologically.
“When it comes to coastal resilience and the importance of biodiversity,” she says, “these animals can help with that more than anything we can engineer. They are simply built for it.”
Heather Coletti, a marine ecologist with the U.S. National Park Service in Anchorage, has studied sea otters in the Gulf of Alaska for nearly 25 years.
Heather Coletti, a marine ecologist with the U.S. National Park Service in Anchorage, has studied sea otters in the Gulf of Alaska for nearly 25 years. She has witnessed their population surge and the positive impact they’ve had in balancing nearshore ecosystems such as kelp forests, breeding grounds for a host of marine species. Image courtesy of Heather Coletti/NPS.
Are otters at fault?
Mike Booz, an area management biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Homer, pins the population growth of sea otters in lower Cook Inlet to the early 2000s, around the time he arrived in the fishing village.
He doesn’t, however, pin the entire blame on growing numbers of sea otters for the diminishing hardshell and razor clams, or king, Tanner and Dungeness crabs.
“In Kachemak Bay, we went from hundreds to thousands [of otters] in my time here,” Booz tells Mongabay. “But before that, from the 1970s to early 2000s, there was a transition already underway in Kachemak Bay and Cook Inlet. It went from being very productive for shellfish to being less productive. At the same time, groundfish like halibut and rock fish numbers grew. Sea otters started popping in on that scene as that was happening.”
Booz adds: “To me, they’re not the cause [of the dearth of nearshore crab and shellfish], or at least it’s not completely clear. Our shellfish stocks were already in decline.”
His observations and research suggest fluctuations in water temperatures driven by climate change have contributed to disrupting the food web, primarily impacting phytoplankton, which shellfish depend on. Less phytoplankton, fewer shellfish.
Mike Booz, a biologist with the Alaska Fish and Game Department in Homer, studies sea otters.
Mike Booz, a biologist with the Alaska Fish and Game Department in Homer, studies sea otters. He says they’re only part of the reason shellfish populations are declining. Booz found that climate change-driven warmer water temperatures are reducing phytoplankton, the food supply for shellfish, which saw their numbers drop before sea otters became a bigger issue. Image by Justin Catanoso for Mongabay.
Between 2015 and 2016, water temperatures grew perilously warm — as much as 5.6° Celsius (10° Fahrenheit) above normal. That’s when a gigantic and persistent mass of globally warmed ocean water in the North Pacific, which scientists dubbed The Blob, also settled into the Gulf of Alaska, harming a range of marine life, especially shellfish.
“Razor clams are filter feeders,” Booz says by way of example. “Years following warmer water temperatures here are terrible for razor clams. There’s no other way to explain [the population decline] other than there is a lack of food for these critters.”
But he doesn’t fully acquit sea otters, either. When shellfish and crabs have a chance to recover in years with colder water, he says, sea otters feast on the bounty of extra food: “I would say things like Dungeness crabs and hardshell clams have no ability to recover to the populations they once were, given the prevalence of sea otters.”
Booz says the otter population is close to its carrying capacity, given its food supply; thus, its numbers will start to level off in the future. In the meantime, he says, greater efforts need to be made in keeping otters away from the numerous small bays and inlets in the Gulf of Alaska so that clams and crabs can propagate.
Rafts of sea otters in Kachemak Bay near Homer, Alaska.
Rafts of sea otters in Kachemak Bay near Homer, Alaska. Sea otters are incredibly social, gathering close together in rafts by the hundreds day and night, while diving incessantly for food. Image by Justin Catanoso for Mongabay.
Otter-proofing with metal netting
Annette Jarozs is the mariculture director at the Alutiiq Pride Marine Institute in Seward, located on the northeast side of the Kenai Peninsula. There, she studies the very species sea otters devour for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
“Going to conferences around Alaska, they [otters] are a very polarizing species,” Jarozs tells Mongabay. “In the last four years, specifically in Prince William Sound, we will go to areas traditionally harvested [by Native Alaskans] for subsistence use — hardshell clams, butter clams, little necks, cockles — and [those areas] look like moonscapes. There are otter pits everywhere. You can’t find a clam bigger than the size of a quarter.”
Jarozs notes how the 9.2-magnitude 1964 earthquake completely changed nearshore marine habitats in the Gulf of Alaska, lifting beaches in some areas by 4.5 meters (15 feet), exposing more shellfish to the newly introduced sea otters. She also mentions the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound, which coated about 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) of shoreline in crude oil and wiped out millions of shellfish, birds and marine mammals (2,000 otters were killed).
But the otters bounced back, and a method was eventually developed to protect recovering shellfish from them. Jarozs describes how her tribally managed institute deployed otter-proof metal mesh netting years ago. Measuring 20 feet by 40 feet and anchored flat on the sand by rebar, the netting deters the marine mammal’s digging and foraging for shellfish in intertidal areas. That method is being tried in a variety of, what she calls, otter exclusion zones.
The nets are working, Jarozs says, though they still aren’t used in many places.
“In one community where we looked at multiple beaches, you could barely find clams of any real size,” she notes. “But where there is netting, you peel it back and it’s the only place we can find large, sizable adult butter clams and little necks. There are otter pits all around the net, but [the otters] can’t get through.”
In some largely underwater areas, Jarozs adds, the netting has created additional habitat as kelp grows up through it, with evidence of fish and crab spawning.
But she makes clear that even widespread use of metal netting can’t be the full response to sea otter predation. Coastal Alaska is far too vast, with sea otters quickly moving on when food becomes scarce, going to where it’s more plentiful.
“For thousands of years, Native people have been part of that chain, really as the top predator,” Jarozs says. “But their role has been arbitrarily reduced [by federal regulations]. Sea otters really are providing important ecosystem services in allowing the kelp to come back. But there has to be a balance.”
Annette Jarozs, the mariculture director at the Alutiiq Pride Marine Institute (JC1) in Seward, checks on a container of growing tatitlik butter clams — a favorite food of sea otters.
Annette Jarozs, the mariculture director at the Alutiiq Pride Marine Institute (JC1) in Seward, checks on a container of growing tatitlik butter clams — a favorite food of sea otters. Her institute developed a nearshore metal mesh that protects shellfish from otter predation, but which isn’t widely used in the Gulf of Alaska. Image by Justin Catanoso for Mongabay.
Sea otters are lean, nonstop eating machines.
Sea otters are lean, nonstop eating machines. They spend most of their lives in frigid Alaskan waters. Because they have no blubber, they must eat up to 30% of their body weight daily to maintain warmth. This exhibit in a National Park Service museum near Anchorage displays their favorite foods: urchins, mussels, butter and razor clams, moon snails. Image by Justin Catanoso for Mongabay.
Balancing nature and Native Alaskan rights
Raven Cunningham has a vision of just such a balance. Native Alaskan by family and culture, (if not by the hereditary requirements set by the U.S. government), she sees a sensible response to sea otters in sovereign rights and centuries of Native knowledge.
“Native people, since time immemorial, have … been managing their resources,” Cunningham, a Native rights activist with the Native Village of Eyak tribe, tells Mongabay. “You take enough for what you need so that you have more for the next day, the next year. We also understand population dynamics and the importance of a healthy ecosystem.
“That’s been taken away from us, but we are working to get it back,” she adds.
Under the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act, coastal Alaskan Natives have a legal right to harvest sea otters without limit, so long as the pelts are fully used. But there’s a hitch, based on who legally qualifies as Native Alaskan. For more than 50 years, the federal government has defined that qualification by “blood quantum,” requiring at least one-quarter full-blooded native genetics to qualify.
Although Cunningham was raised by parents and grandparents who identified as Native Alaskans, and whose ancestry stretches back centuries, she — and most Natives — fall short under the blood quantum definition, thus legally barring them from otter hunting. In the final month of the Biden administration, that definition was poised for elimination after years of negotiations in which Cunningham participated. Progress stopped when the Trump administration came back into power.
Raven Cunningham calls herself a Native Alaskan even though federal blood definitions say she’s not.
A Native rights activist, Raven Cunningham says Native Alaskans hold the key to balancing sea otter populations in the Gulf of Alaska. Here, she holds an otter she hunted in Orca Bay in Prince William Sound, near where she lives in Cordova. Image courtesy of Bjorn Olsen.
Cunningham says the blood quantum definition was historically intended to restrict Native Alaskan rights, not protect those rights when it came to land and wildlife. As an outspoken advocate for Native rights and educated in natural resource management, she says she represents a consensus of her people when she states:
“The government thinks they have the authority to tell me as a Native person what I can and cannot do. But tribal law is equal to federal law. And my tribe does not acknowledge blood quantum as an identifier of indigeneity. We are pushing down the walls that have kept people like myself from being able to participate in this cultural practice.”
Cunningham lives in Cordova on the eastern side of Prince William Sound. Her part of southeastern Alaska is inhabited by seven Indigenous tribes, and has some of the greatest concentrations of sea otters. She has witnessed their impact, especially on isolated villages without road access, where Natives depend on coastal waters and shellfish for sustenance.
“This area used to be known as the clam capital of the world,” Cunningham explains. “You used to be able to go out into Orca Inlet and harvest 1,000 pounds of Dungeness crab. You were feeding a community. You were eating razor clams. We say, ‘When the tide is out, the table is set.’ Not anymore. I can’t remember the last time I ate a razor clam.”
There’s no doubt things are out of balance ecologically, not just in Prince William Sound, but around the vast sweeping arc of the Gulf of Alaska. However, there’s little consensus on solutions: As Heather Coletti in Anchorage points out, the ecological balance would be worse without sea otters. And as Mike Booz in Homer notes, keeping otters out of select coves and inlets would help protect shellfish, while Annette Jarozs in Seward says spreading more otter-proof netting in intertidal areas will help, too.
This otter pelt is in a bed & breakfast in Homer.
Sea otters were nearly hunted into extinction more than a century ago because they possess the densest, warmest fur of any mammal — with as many as 100,000 hair follicles per square inch. While otter meat isn’t considered as suitable for human consumption, their pelts can be made into highly insulating coats, boots, scarves and hats. This otter pelt is in a bed & breakfast in Homer. Image by Justin Catanoso for Mongabay.
In Cordova, Raven Cunningham takes the view that it’s past time to recognize that a big part of the solution lies with Native Alaskans and restoring their full rights to sustainably manage sea otters as they’ve done for thousands of years.
“We are now working on otter management plans,” says Cunningham, who makes clothing, boots and scarves from otter pelts. “Allowing Indigenous people to manage their resources, and having otter harvest management plans for specific regions and tribes, is the resolution to balancing our ecosystem. It’s going to take some time. It’s going to take our knowledge. But it’s also going to take our federal partners and scientists to help us determine what that balance is and what it will take to get there.”
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