4.4 Future Work
It is important for managers to consider the whole ecosystem and not only focus on each single species individually. Because sea otters are removing biomass similar to a fishery, their impact on invertebrate prey should be considered in management strategies. It is also important to incorporate how sea otters prioritize and change their diets; for example, this study showed that sea otters increase their sea cucumber consumption in the summer months. Currently, there is a lack of invertebrate surveys to assess current population levels. Dungeness crabs, butter clams, and other subsistence bivalves like cockles are not surveyed. Creating a complete ecosystem level management for the Alaska nearshore system with subsistence foods surveyed would account for the needs of people both local and commercial fishing, as well as the health of the ecosystem.
Within our study area only three aerial surveys were conducted over a 30-year period to estimate the sea otter abundance and geographic range . More fine-scale outcomes of sea otter diet changes were not possible because of the long gaps in population data. More frequent range-wide surveys are needed to better understand the population size and distribution. The current Southeast Alaska population movements and growth rates are currently estimated on surveys that were conducted a decade ago .