Sea Otter near Extinction: Only 15 in Aquariums in Japan

Japan's aquariums are short of sea otters, only 15 of them in total, due, for one, to the US trade embargo and also to the overall ageing of sea otters. Some aquariums are trying to breed them but so far not much luck.

Suma Aqualife Park in Kobe is trying to do just that. They have a 17-year-old male and a 16-year-old female being matched up right now, but no positive indication yet, though "they seem to share a common chemistry", according to the attendant Momoyo Muramoto, 32. Man-cared sea otters normally live 20 years or so and their prime breeding age is said to be around 15 years old, so the pair in question may be in a critical period. Similar attempts are being made at Tokyo's Sunshine Aquarium, Adventure World in Wakayama and Umi-no-Nakamichi of Marine World in Fukuoka with four pairs of sea otters but all including the pair at Suma Marine Aquarium are over 15 years of age.

Two decades ago there were 122 sea otters in aquariums but only 15 right now. The US embargo since a decade ago has virtually killed the trade.

Sea otters are a charm of any aquarium; years ago the sea otter fur was a charm of trading houses. At the top of the 20th Century the animal was nearly extinct. 

Sea otter was first introduced in Japan back in 1982. Two years afterwards, a baby sea otter debuted in Mie's Toba Aquarium, when the aquarium was visited by 2 million people nearly triple the number in normal years (80- thousand). 

As of 1996, the aquariums in Japan were home to some 122 sea otters. On August 1 this year, the eldest male sea otter "Tony" died at age 20, making the total sea otter population to 15 at 10 aquariums.