Carol Rose from Cencal provided us the following explanation of the U.S.Fish and Wildlife service action. The original news article about the US FWS is here. An extract from her email follows:
At one time, the Service had officially stated no otter move to Sonoma/Meno coasts as severe damage to local economy - the recreational abalone fishery was a phenomena base of income for the area. The economic value of the Northern California sport fisher was estimated, in 1990 $, to 21.9 million dollars - info from Abalone Ocean Sport Fishing, State of California, The Resources Agency, Department of Fish and Game, August 1991.
I have put together some base information on the idea which I will distribute next week. Should/will CenCal take a position on the translocation idea?
What some of you may not know/remember, the F&WS did a translocation in 1987-1990. They moved 139 otters from Monterey area to San Nicolas Island. Only 18 stayed (13% success rate), 11 died, 33 went ‘home’ and 81 otters status unknown. By 1990, the ‘experimental translocation’ was officially declared a failure.
On several occasions, I have seen it written that previous translation successful!
It is not a short read but give it a whirl: there are 16 meetings 7 of which can be considered 'local.'