Sea Otter
68 cm
This buoy found washed up on Balaclava Island, near the northern tip of Vancouver Island, it was likely used in a salmon or herring fishery. The two red floats were found by a beach comber washed up on a beach on Hornby Island. The line it hangs from was found washed up on the beach, tangled in the high tide line, I’ve tied it in a figure 8 knot and a flat lanyard knot lashed with waxed sailing twine.
On this piece I have painted a sea otter diving for an urchin in a beautiful bull kelp forest. This species of kelp has buoyant, carbon monoxide filled bulbs, which hold the fronds of this brown algae near the surface so it can photosynthesize. Kelp forests are very important habitat for many marine species including sea otters. Sea otters were almost wiped out by fur traders in the 19th century, but 89 individuals were reintroduced between 1969 and 1972 from Alaska, where their population remained strong, to Checleset Bay on the Northwest of Vancouver Island. Today there are now thousands of them in BC and they play an important role in our ocean ecosystem, keeping urchins in check so our coastal kelp forests can flourish. Sea otters use kelp forests to hunt for food as well as a secure place to wrap themselves and their babies up for a nap, so they don’t float away. White plumose anemones and painted anemones grow along the bottom with ochre sea stars, sunflower sea stars and a vermillion sea star.
10% of the sale price of this buoy will be donated to the Elakha Alliance. An organization seeking to “restore a healthy population of sea otters to the Oregon coast and to thereby make Oregon’s marine and coastal ecosystem more robust and resilient.”
To learn more visit: https://www.elakhaalliance.org/