Our charity partner Ocean Generation explores the sea otter’s outsized role in reviving coastal ecosystems - and the inspiration behind why we feature the otter on our organic wine range.
20 Pizzas a Day—and a Healthier Ocean!
If there’s one thing sea otters know how to do, it’s eat. Each day, sea otters eat around a quarter of their body weight in food. Here at Ocean Generation, we’ve estimated that this is roughly the equivalent of a person eating 20 pizzas every day!
But sea otters are also accidental conservationists. One of the sea otter’s main meals is sea urchins: a species whose overgrazing has been responsible for the loss of kelp forests all over the world. By munching on anywhere up to a thousand sea urchins a day, sea otters in the Pacific are able to balance their populations and restore these entire precious ecosystems. Not only are kelp forests potentially a powerful carbon sink, but a rich, abundant and diverse place for life. One study found a single piece of kelp that served as a habitat for over 80,000 other individual organisms!
Small Paws, Big Impact
Sea otters are such a powerful force for good on the ecosystems around them that they are at the heart of kelp forest restoration projects in the Pacific. At Monterey Bay, the aquarium raises orphaned pups, re-releasing them into the wild so that they may return to areas of their former range. By leaving them to peacefully mind their own business, they have got far better results than they could have hoped for otherwise.
In fact, sea otters eat so many purple sea urchins that their bones are stained a rosy purple too. Whoever said you are what you eat, is probably right!
At Sea Change Wine, we’re proud to partner with Ocean Generation to bring stories like this to life. Ocean Generation’s mission is to translate complex Ocean science into everyday content we can all understand, helping us see the vital connections between the Ocean and the choices we make. By supporting their work, we’re helping to ensure that more people can learn about the threats our Ocean faces and be inspired by the incredible ways nature finds to restore itself, just like the sea otter.
The otter is featured on our organic range of wines, which can be found here.
