These pictures of sea otters and sea lions were taken during my trip to Kenai National Park at Seward. I can’t tell you how glad I am to see these wild animals there. When I studies history of science many years ago, one of my class assignments was a book report of Corey Ford’s “Where the sea breaks its back; the epic story of a pioneer naturalist and the discovery of Alaska.” From the book I learned that during the fur trade, the number of sea otters and sea lions substantially declined, and sea cows extinct altogether. By the end of the fur trade in 1911, almost 1 million sea otters had been slaughtered, and the population worldwide had decreased to about 1,000. Today there are approximately 20,000 sea otters in Southeast Alaska, which is below the sustainable level! The photos below were taken at Alaska Sealife Center at Seward.