Hi everyone. It's Ms. Shelton here for another Seesaw talk. And we are gonna talk about otters, specifically sea otters. Look how cute they are. So sea otters are an endangered Marine mammal. They live in the Northern Pacific ocean along the coast of north America and Asia. So that's gonna be, you know, up by Washington, Oregon, Canada, and then Northern Asia is, the Koreas Russia, things like that.
Sea otters are carnivores. They mostly eat muscles, sea urchins, crabs, and clams. So lots of different crustaceans for them, anything that has a hard shell. And they'll basically bang on it with a rock until the shell breaks and they can get to the delicious meat inside. Sea otters can live up to 23 years and can weigh up to 65 pounds that makes them the largest member of the weasel family.
I did not know that otters were a type of weasel. They're all cute, but I think I personally think otters are, are a lot cuter than weasel. All right. Fun facts. You see, you see this little guy in the picture and he cute. He's so happy. Sea otters float on their backs in the ocean, even when they're sleeping. So they are always constantly on their back, which is probably a good way to be keeps your head above water. They'll even hold hands with each other to keep from floating away, which is adorable. And mother otters will hold baby. Otters like close to their chest.
Sea otters were actually hunted to near extinction in the early 19 hundreds today. They are a protected endangered species. So that's good that it's, it's illegal to hunt sea otters now. But unfortunately the population of sea otters right now has still been declining for the last few years. And that has to do with things like water pollution, and climate change and, that kind of stuff. But sea otters have to keep their fur clean to stay warm. And when I say clean, I mean, they have to, they cannot have a single twig or speck of dirt in their fur because they don't have fat to insulate from the cold. Think about where they are in the ocean. They are in the Northern Pacific ocean around Canada. Like the water they're in is freezing. So they have no fat to insulate from the cold, so they have to keep there for so, so, so clean in order to keep that insulating layer between them and the water. All right. And here's just some more pictures of sea otters because come on, they're so cute!. They are so, so cute.
This concludes our Seesaw talk. You guys just keep your questions coming.
