First, they get hauled up to the mother ship. Then, strange beings with masked faces sedate them. The beings take body samples blood, whiskers and even poop. When they wake up, the abductees find radio beacons implanted in their bellies and tags on their feet.
Forty sea otters captured, studied and released last summer in Kachemak Bay might have felt like characters in Whitley Streiber's UFO novel, "The Grays." It's all part of a study to find out why an unusual number of sea otters have died in southcentral Alaska.
Last Friday, Angela Doroff, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist from Anchorage, gave an update on the research prompted by last year's declaration of an unusual mortality event, or UME, among sea otters.
Since 1998 and through July, 291 stranded sea otters have been found in southcentral Alaska 247 of them in Kachemak Bay. Almost half of them have shown signs of valvular endocarditis, an inflammation of the heart valve, or sepsis, the presence of streptococcus bovis/equine bacteria. Other otters have injuries from trauma. Either cause could have contributed to the otters' deaths.
"One of the things that's very clear is animals rarely die of a single cause," Doroff said. "They might have been hit by a boat, but a virus makes them slow to respond."
What scientists don't know is if there's something going on in the bay that makes them more susceptible to infections. Beachwalkers might have seen dying otters dragging themselves across the beach.
"They're in pretty bad shape," Doroff said. "It's a rough thing for the animal."
Are food resources in decline? Is something polluting the bay? What killed otters before? Those are some of the questions biologists are asking.
"One of the potential reasons is there's something else in the environment causing this disposition," she said.
Complicating current studies is a change in research methods better science with better tools. That can make it difficult comparing information gathered today with data from decades ago.
"There's been a structural change in how diseases have been reported," Doroff said. "It could have been nobody was looking with the tools we have now."
That's one of the benefits of declaring an unusual mortality event.
"It connects us to the group of experts that helps us standardize things," Doroff said.
The capture studies done this summer have given biologists some good information, though it's too soon to make any conclusions. Dr. Pam Tuomi, a veterinarian with the Alaska SeaLife Center, did a heart ultrasound on healthy sea otters captured. A VHF radio beacon was implanted in the otters' bellies.
Biologists with the Kachemak Bay Research Reserve have been tracking the otters all summer. One thing they've learned: otters move around a lot.
"They're not concentrating to a specific forage habitat," Doroff said.
Citizens can help biologists study sea otters. Anyone seeing tagged otters should try to note the color of the tags and which part of the left or right flipper the tags are on. Report observed otters to the Kachemak Bay Research Reserve or Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge through the Alaska Islands and Ocean Visitor Center at 235-6961. Live or dead stranded otters should be reported to the Alaska Stranded Marine Animal Hotline at (888) 774-7325.
Michael Armstrong can be reached at michael.armstrong@homernews.com.
